mim 


THE  ©osESQ® 
CHANGING 
WORLD  ess® 

«  •  »  «  9 

ANNIE    BESANT 


JUL  10  li^n 


LIBRARY 


University  of  California. 

GIFT    OF 

Lluu^.....'^L..n.......^..Q.^         : _ 

Class 


Tile  Changing  World 

and 

Lectures  to  Theosophical  Students 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/changingworldlecOObesarich 


The  Changing  World 

and 

Lectures  to  Theosophical 
Students 


Fifteen  Lectures  delivered  in  London  during 
May,  June,  and  July  1909 

by 

Annie    Besant 

President  of  the  Theopophical  Society 


Chicago,  111. 

The  Theosophical  Book  Concern 

Room  426,  26  Van  Buren  Street 


London,  Eng. :  The  Theosophical  Publishing  Society 
1910 


JUL  101911 

GIFT  r?  %^  '  ^ .  H .  :Jt^-^y;^Uc^. 

5000  printed  August  1909 
2500       **       April  19 10 
.2000       **       November  19 10 


Contents 


PART  I 

LECTURES  TO  THE  PUBLIC 

THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

LECT.  PAGE 

1.  THE  DEADLOCK   IN   RELIGION^  SCIENCE,  AND  ART  I 

2.  THE   DEADLOCK   IN    SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  :  LUXURY 

AND  WANT  FACE  TO  FACE  .  .  .25 

3.  THE   NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE, 

AND    ART       ......         47 

4.  BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED   TO   SOCIAL    CONDITIONS 

5.  THE   COMING  RACE         .... 


75 
103 
132 
155 


6.  THE   COMING   CHRIST    .... 

7.  THE   LARGER    CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   ITS   VALUE 

8.  THE     PLACE     OF    THEOSOPHY     IN     THE     COMING 

CIVILISATION  .  ,  .  .  .183 

PART    II 

LECTURES  TO  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENTS 

I   THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE    .....      209 
2.  THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE         ....     226 

V 


314794 


VI                                                CONTENTS 

LECT. 

PAGE 

3.   THE   CATHOLIC    AND    PURITAN    SPIRIT    IN 

THE 

THEOSOPHICAL    SOCIETY:    THE    VALUE 

AND 

DANGER  OF  EACH   .... 

. 

245 

4.   THE   SACRAMENTAL    LIFE 

. 

262 

5.   ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY,   I909 

. 

279 

6.   THE   NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST 

. 

297 

7.   THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  IN  FACE  OF  REVE- 
LATION, INSPIRATION,  AND  OBSERVATION        .      3I7 


Part  I 
Lectures  to  the  Public 


The  Changing  World 


Lecture  I 

The  Deadlock  in  Religion,  Science, 
and  Art 

Friends  :  if  you  stand  on  the  seashore  when  the  tide  is 
flowing  inwards,  and  if  you  watch  the  waves  as  they 
ripple  up,  one  after  another,  each  coming  a  Httle  further 
than  its  predecessor,  each  in  turn  breaking  and  making 
way  for  its  follower — in  the  inflowing  tide  you  have  a 
picture  of  the  evolving  races  of  mankind.  And  if  you 
watch  the  method  of  the  flow,  you  will  notice  that  that 
which  is  the  most  prominent  at  the  moment  is  not  the 
one  which  creeps  furthest  up  the  sands.  The  wave 
which  is  breaking  into  foam,  which  is  rippling  over  the 
pebbles,  which  throws  up  the  broken  water,  which  falls 
back  on  to  the  land  and  makes  music,  sound,  melody 
as  it  breaks — that  is  the  wave  which  is  nearly  over;  it 
is  the  wave  whose  course  is  run.  But  if  you  watch  you 
will  notice  that  while  your  attention  was  caught  by  the 
noise  of  the  breaking  wave,  by  the  foam  of  the  billow 
that  was  almost  over,  silently,  imperceptibly  almost, 
visible  only  to  the  eye  that  watches,  another  wave  is 


2  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

rising  behind  it,  silently,  without  break,  without  noise, 
without  attracting  attention ;  but  the  wave  that  is  rising 
silently  behind  the  breaker — that  is  the  wave  which 
will  follow  on  the  billow  that  has  broken,  and  will  run 
further  up  the  sands  than  the  breaking  wave  had 
gone. 

In  that  familiar  picture,  which  every  child  who  has 
gone  to  the  seaside  knows  so  well,  is  a  figure  of  the 
great  tide  of  evolution,  in  which  races  are  waves  and  the 
ocean  humanity  itself.  And  each  great  wave — the  great 
wave  that  comes  at  intervals — is  a  race,  and  the  smaller 
waves  that  come  between  are  the  sub-races  which  the 
race  bears.  Just  as  with  the  water,  so  with  humanity: 
as  one  sub-wave  is  breaking,  having  reached  its  highest 
point,  another  is  rising  silently  behind  it,  which  shall 
rule  the  world  when  the  breaking  wave  has  spent  its 
force.  Then,  from  time  to  time,  to  those  who  have  eyes 
to  see,  on  the  crest  of  the  breaking  wave  appears  the 
mighty  angel  that  we  call  the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  and  his 
feet  are  on  the  wave,  and  his  locks  mingle  with  the  rays 
of  the  sun,  and  he  cries  out  in  a  voice  of  thunder :  Be- 
hold I  make  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  in  which 
righteousness  shall  dwell. 

In  such  a  day,  in  such  a  time,  we  of  the  present  age 
are  living.  The  wave  of  the  sub-race  to  which  we  all 
belong,  or  nearly  all  of  us,  that  is  breaking  on  the  shore 
of  time;  the  wave  behind  it  of  the  race  that  shall  be, 
to  whom  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  shall  be  a 
habitation — that  is  the  race  which  is  coming  to  the  birth, 
which,  in  its  turn,  shall  rule  this  changing  earth.  For 
many  and  many  a  century,  nay,  even  for  millennia,  the 


THE  DEADLOCK    IN    RELIGION,    SCIENCE,    AND   ART      3 

slow  course  of  evolution  goes  on  quietly  without  much 
observation,  and  then  suddenly  comes  a  change  —  a 
change  of  a  dying  and  a  birthing  race,  a  transition  stage, 
a  transition  age  in  which  all  movement  is  rapid,  in  which 
catastrophes  are  frequent,  in  which  sudden  changes 
make  themselves  felt,  in  which  men  grow  in  a  year 
more  than  their  forefathers  grew  perhaps  in  a  century. 
In  such  a  transition  age  again  the  world  is  standing  at 
the  present  time.  Behind  us,  the  long  centuries  through 
which  the  great  Aryan  race  has  been  sending  out  wave 
after  wave  of  humanity  in  successive  billows,  sweeping 
over  Asia  and  over  Europe,  one  after  another  rising,, 
growing,  ruling,  and  then  passing  to  its  fall.  During  all 
the  time  of  a  sub-race,  the  world  rolls  down  what  have 
been  called  the  grooves  of  change,  steadily,  quietly,  with- 
out much  of  jolt  or  of  trouble;  the  wheels  running 
fairly  smoothly,  continuously,  with  little  of  shock.  And 
then,  again,  the  time  comes  when  a  new  sub-race  must 
be  born,  when  another  shall  succeed  and  the  old  shall 
pass  away. 

If  you  look  around  you  now,  on  every  side  you  will 
see  the  signs  of  a  closing  age;  thoughts  which  have 
reached  a  point  beyond  which  they  cannot  continue  on 
the  old  lines  and  in  the  old  methods,  that  which  I  have 
called  a  deadlock ;  in  all  the  most  important  departments 
of  human  thought  and  human  activity,  rapid,  extra- 
ordinarily rapid,  growth.  The  changes  which  the  elder 
amongst  us  have  seen  are  marvellous  exceedingly, 
change  succeeding  change,  and  each  change  greater 
than  the  one  before  it,  until  the  whole  of  society  seems 
to  be  rushing  onwards  swiftly  without  a  pause,  and  men 


4  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

wonder  what  the  next  thought  will  be,  what  the  next 
development  will  forebode. 

It  is  not,  of  course,  for  the  first  time  in  human  his- 
tory that  such  a  period  as  this  has  come  upon  the  world. 
Look  back  to  the  time  when  the  sub-race  preceding  the 
Teutonic  was  at  the  zenith  of  its  power,  and  see  then 
how  troubled  were  the  minds  of  men.  It  was  the  time 
that  was  marked  by  the  birth  of  Him  who  is  known  in 
western  lands  as  the  Christ — a  period  of  swift  transition 
like  our  own,  of  marked  and  sudden  changes.  And  if  to 
the  people  of  that  day  you  had  said,  as  I  am  now  saying 
to  you :  "You  are  in  one  of  the  great  transition  periods 
of  the  world's  history;  the  race  that  is  dominant  and 
imperial  is  really  reaching  its  zenith,  and  after  the 
zenith  comes  the  slow  descent,  inevitable,  sure" ;  if  you 
had  said  to  the  people  of  the  time  that  among  them 
would  come  a  mighty  Teacher  who  should  revolutionise 
the  future  world  and  change  the  very  foundations  of 
civilisation ;  who  should  change  the  type  of  religion  for 
the  foremost  races  of  the  world ;  who  should  lift  up  a  dif- 
ferent ethical  code,  and  make  that  virtuous  which  before 
had  been  despised,  and  that  which  had  been  looked 
down  upon  the  topmost  crown  of  saintship — if  to  the 
people  of  that  day  you  had  spoken  such  words,  they 
would  have  laughed  at  you  as  dreamer  or  threatened  you 
as  madman.  For  why  should  the  world  change  on  its  ap- 
pointed ways,  and  why  should  the  feet  of  the  world  seek 
to  tread  new  and  untrodden  paths  ?  And  yet  there  were 
many  who  felt  a  change  was  coming;  yet  there  were 
prophets  and  seers  who  spoke  of  a  coming  kingdom  and 
a  coming  Teacher,   and   changes   which   should   alter 


THE  DEADLOCK   IN   RELIGION,    SCIENCE^    AND  ART      5 

the  face  of  the  world.  Of  little  use  to  look  back  to 
those  far-off  times  if  you  repeat  in  your  own  day  the 
blindness  of  the  people  then;  for  surely  in  these  two 
thousand  years  men  should  have  learned  something 
more  of  wisdom,  their  eyes  should  have  gained  some- 
thing more  of  insight,  and  the  signs  of  a  closing  age 
should  be  more  palpable  to  them  than  in  the  days  of 
their  forerunners  in  the  closing  age  of  Rome. 

Even  at  that  time  a  future  was  spoken  of  where 
changes  should  again  occur,  where  a  great  Teacher 
should  again  appear,  where  a  new  age  should  be  born, 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  should  be  seen.  It  is  in 
that  next  transition  age,  then,  that  you  and  I  are  stand- 
ing ;  and  although  many  of  you  may  say,  as  they  would 
have  said  of  old,  that  I  am  a  dreamer  or  am  mad,  none 
the  less  will  I  strive  to  tell  you  this  evening,  and  the 
Sundays  that  follow,  something  of  the  signs  by  which 
you  may  judge  for  yourselves  whether  a  great  change 
is  not  coming  over  the  world,  whether  there  is  not 
coming  a  new  kingdom  and  a  mighty  Teacher,  whether 
in  our  days  again,  as  in  the  days  of  the  past,  the  world  is 
not  to  take  on  a  new  form  and  a  nobler  type  of  human- 
ity to  live  and  rule  on  earth,  for  many  are  the  signs  of 
the  age  that  is  closing,  and  many  the  signs  also  of  the 
day  that  is  dawning  upon  earth.  In  this  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing lecture  we  shall  be  dealing  with  the  dying,  not  the 
race  which  is  to  be  bom ;  and  if  in  some  ways,  therefore, 
these  two  lectures  may  seem  a  little  gloomy  or  a  little 
grey,  then  I  would  remind  you  that  the  night  must  come 
before  the  dawn,  and  the  greyness  of  the  sky  before  the 
sunrising.    If  we  can  see  behind  the  greyness  the  first 


O  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

faint  gleams  of  the  rose-tipped  fingers  of  the  dawn,  ah ! 
then  we  need  not  mind  that  the  night  is  still  with  us, 
for  the  night  is  closing,  and  we,  the  children  of  the  day, 
shall  see  the  rising  of  the  sun. 

I  have  taken  for  this  evening  three  great  departments 
of  human  thought — Religion,  Science,  Art;  and  our 
task  now  is  to  see  whether,  looking  over  the  world  of 
religion,  of  science,  and  of  art,  we  can  find  that  the  old 
methods  have  carried  us  as  far  as  we  can  go,  that  they 
are  breaking  in  our  hands,  that  we  no  longer  can  use 
them  for  opening  up  new  vistas  of  thought  and  hope 
for  man.  On  every  side  there  is  a  feeling  of  uncer- 
tainty, a  feeling,  I  might  almost  say,  of  distress ;  a  ques- 
tioning what  is  truth,  what  is  reliable?  where  can  we 
find  some  rock  on  which  we  may  put  our  feet  amid  all 
the  buffeting  of  various  opinions,  of  doubt,  nay,  of 
scepticism  and  unbelief? 

I. — Religion. 

What  is  the  position  of  the  religious  world  to-day? 
First  of  all,  there  have  been  working  in  it  now  for  many 
long  years  certain  forces  undermining  the  religion  of  the 
time ;  and  when  I  speak  now  of  religion,  I  mean  the  re- 
ligion of  the  West,  for  I  am  speaking  in  the  West;  al- 
though I  might  show  you  that  in  other  parts  of  the  world 
as  well  the  same  forces  are  at  work,  though  not  quite 
so  prominently,  and  have  brought  about  there  to  some 
extent  the  same  results.  Now,  it  is  not  from  the  mouth 
of  a  Theosophist  like  myself  that  I  would  ask  you  to 
take  the  testimony  as  to  the  difficulties  in  which  the 
religious  world  finds   itself  to-day,  and  on  the  most 


THE  DEADLOCK   IN   RELIGION,    SCIENCE,   AND  ART      7 

important  points  of  which  I  shall  touch,  after  drawing 
your  attention  to  the  destructive  forces  that  have  been 
undermining  religion,  I  shall  take  my  testimony  from 
bishop  and  from  clergyman  in  their  published  writings, 
which  all  may  read  who  will.  The  undermining  forces 
that  I  allude  to  are  chiefly  three,  and  each  destructive ; 
the  absence  of  construction  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the 
day  that  is  closing.  First,  as  you  know  well,  the  under- 
mining which  has  been  done  by  scholarship  in  Christen- 
dom, in  which  what  is  called  the  higher  criticism  has 
been  tearing  to  pieces  the  documents  on  which  historical 
Christianity  has  been  built  up — ^taking  one  after  an- 
other, examining,  studying,  scrutinising,  comparing  one 
kind  of  language  with  another  kind  in  the  same  docu- 
ment; pointing  out  marks  of  different  ages  where  a 
single  writer  was  supposed  to  have  been  speaking,  and 
gradually  collecting  from  all  sides  different  readings, 
placing  them  side  by  side,  and  finding  them  to  a  very 
great  extent  mutually  destructive.  So  far  has  that  gone, 
as  you  know,  that,  not  so  very  long  ago,  the  whole  of  this 
line  of  investigation  was  condemned  by  the  authoritative 
head  of  the  great  Roman  Catholic  communion.  The 
higher  criticism,  the  historical  dealing  with  Church  teach- 
ing and  Church  history,  the  analysing,  scrutinising,  in- 
vestigating spirit  of  our  own  time — ^the  whole  of  that, 
with  all  its  results,  has  been  condemned  and  forbidden  to 
be  taught  within  the  teaching  establishments  of  the  great 
Roman  communion;  the  results  of  historical  criticism 
have  been  banned,  and,  most  fatal  of  all  policies,  kept 
largely  out  of  the  knowledge  of  those  who  are  to  be- 
come the  teachers  of  the  generations  that  are  to  be 


8  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

born.  Is  there  any  wonder,  if  you  look  at  it  only  from 
the  outside  point?  For  where  religion  is  a  matter  of 
authority,  of  books,  of  successions,  of  historical  events, 
there  criticism  must  always  destroy;  the  form  changes, 
and  cannot  remain  stable  in  a  transitory  world,  and  we 
find  the  ancient  documents  shorn  of  their  ancient  value ; 
we  find  inspiration,  limited  and  fettered  to  words  instead 
of  the  spirit,  failing  to  hold  its  own  against  the  critical 
scholarship  of  the  day.  One  defence  after  another  is 
thrown  up,  only  to  be  abandoned  before  the  approaching 
tide,  as  children  throw  up  castles  in  the  sand,  dreaming 
that  sand  castles  can  stop  the  flow  of  waves.  You  know, 
on  every  side  questions  have  arisen  in  regard  to  docu- 
ments; most  disheartening  and  discouraging  if  religion 
were  a  matter  of  books  and  words,  and  not  a  matter  of 
the  living  and  divine  spirit  in  man,  which  no  criticism  is 
able  to  destroy.  For,  out  of  it  all,  thought  arises  and  all 
criticism  itself  has  birth.  But,  for  the  moment,  in  that 
tearing  to  pieces  of  the  documents,  one  great  inroad  is 
made  on  the  religion  of  the  time. 

Then,  if  you  turn  to  another  destructive  force  that 
has  been  undermining  popular  religion,  you  find  it  in 
archaeological  research ;  you  find  it  in  what  is  called  com- 
parative mythology,  built  up  out  of  the  results  of  that 
research;  unburied  cities,  unburied  libraries,  unburied 
tombs — they  have  all  given  up  their  longhidden  secrets, 
and  those  secrets  have  been  used  as  weapons  against 
the  religion  of  the  West.  Dates  have  been  thrown 
overboard,  hundreds  of  years  have  been  lengthened 
into  millions;  archaeology,  geology,  antiquarianism 
of     every    kind,     researches     into     long-dead     races 


THE  DEADLOCK    IN    RELIGION,    SCIENCE,    AND   ART      9 

have  all  given  the  same  result,  shaking  the  very  founda- 
tions on  which  it  was  thought,  however  wrongly,  that 
religion  must  be  built.  Out  of  all  this  undermining,  this 
destruction,  from  the  continuously  critical  spirit  of  man, 
have  arisen  doubt  and  question  and  half-scepticism,  and. 
only  a  hope  instead  of  a  knowledge,  only  an  aspiration 
instead  of  a  living  faith.  And  beyond  those  minor  ques- 
tions of  religion  which  can  be  touched  by  this  kind  of 
destructive  criticism,  beyond  and  above  those,  the  cen- 
tral ideas  of  religion  have  been  thrown  into  the  Crucible 
of  Reason.  The  idea  of  God  Himself  has  been  under 
discussion,  argued  about,  reasoned  about,  and  the  con- 
ception of  God  has  changed.  Who  now  dreams  of 
troubling  himself  much  about  Butler's  Analogy f  Who 
now  would  spend  his  time  poring  over  Paley's  Evidence  ? 
These  are  out  of  date,  and  they  do  not  deal  with  the 
questions  of  the  time ;  for  the  thought  of  Evolution  has 
affected  religion,  and  the  central  conception  of  Deity  has 
not  been  able  to  escape  the  corrosion  of  that  atmosphere 
of  thought.  Here,  again,  outward  demonstrations  are 
failing,  outward  reasonings  fail  to  satisfy.  Reason, 
though  piled  upon  reason,  can  give  no  more  than  a 
reasonable  probability,  so  long  as  you  watch  for  God 
only  in  the  outer  world,  and  not  in  His  highest  mani- 
festation, the  Spirit  which  lives  in  yourself.  The  idea  of 
an  extra-cosmic  God  is  gradually  disappearing  from  the 
world  of  thought.  The  idea  of  a  God  who  made  the 
universe  as  a  piece  of  machinery,  and  stood  outside  it 
while  the  wheels  were  turning  and  the  bands  were 
working — that  idea  has  almost  passed  away ;  and  instead 
of  that  a  God  immanent  in  everything,  a  God  who  is  a 


lO  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

life  and  not  a  mechanician,  a  God  who  is  an  informing 
Spirit  and  not  an  outside  creator — ^that  nobler,  more 
exquisite  idea  is  dawning  on  the  religious  world  to-day. 
But  still,  to  see  Him  only  immanent  in  the  universe, 
that  is  not  the  final  answer  of  religion;  there  is  some- 
thing more  that  is  needed  than  the  God  who  is  found 
within  the  universe  and  within  man,  that  mighty  truth 
which  is  spoken  out  in  an  Eastern  scripture:  "I  estab- 
lished this  universe  with  a  portion  of  Myself,  and  I  re- 
main." That  is  one  of  the  new  avenues  of  thought,  of 
escape  from  the  destructive  forces  of  the  thought  that 
we  are  considering. 

Along  another  of  the  great  Christian  concepts  there  is 
much  of  trouble  and  of  difficulty  to-day.  I  take  here,  for 
a  moment,  one  of  a  series  of  remarkable  articles  that 
appeared  in  the  Hibbert  Journal  for  January  last,  one 
perhaps  of  the  finest  numbers  that  have  been  issued,  deal- 
ing with  this  question  of  the  time.  One  of  these  articles 
has  a  strange  title  which  marks  out  the  crux  of  many  a 
mind  to-day;  the  title  is,  "Jesus  or  Christ?";  not  "Jesus 
Christ,"  not  "Jesus  and  Christ,"  but  "Jesus  or  Christ  ?" ; 
natural  enough  if  it  were  written  by  a  Theosophist,  but 
this  is  written  by  a  minister  of  a  Christian  church,  and 
he  confesses,  with  wonderful  candour  and  boldness,  the 
difficulties  that  all  must  face  who  are  dealing  on  the  one 
side  with  a  spiritual  ideal  and  on  the  other  with  a  man. 
He  asks  whether  the  claims  made  are  on  behalf  of  a 
spiritual  ideal,  to  which  provisionally  the  word  "Christ" 
may  be  applied,  or  are  they  predicated  of  Jesus ;  he  then 
goes  through  a  number  of  these  difficulties  (many  of  you 
would  do  well  to  read   the  article  at  your  leisure  ) ,  pointing 


THE   DEADLOCK    IN    RELIGION,    SCIENCE,    AND    ART    II 

out  in  how  many  cases  in  the  New  Testament  you  come 
across  limitations,  acceptance  of  the  thought  of  the  time, 
and  many  other  difficulties  which  clash  with  the  idea  that 
this  was  Very  God  of  Very  God.  "No  condemnation,"  he 
points  out,  "in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  passed  on 
the  harsh  and  cruel  law  of  debtor  and  creditor,  nor  would 
efforts  for  legal  reform  find  any  encouragement  from  the 
words  attributed  to  the  Master  here.  On  non-resistance 
and  oath-taking  the  rule  attributed  to  Jesus  is  absolute. 
Yet,  as  a  whole,  Christendom  has  openly  violated  it 
throughout  its  history."  He  then  speaks  of  the  view 
which  is  taken  of  man  in  relation  to  woman,  of  the 
"iniquitous  principle  of  sex-inferiority  as  against  wo- 
man," a  principle  that  "has  inflicted  infinite  suffering  on 
half  of  the  human  race."  And  so  he  goes  on,  taking  up 
point  after  point,  and  declaring  that  this  conclusion  can 
no  longer  be  avoided — ^that  to  identify  Jesus  with  Christ 
is  to  "make  God  a  Being  who  is  omnipotent,  yet  limited 
in  power;  omniscient,  yet  defective  in  knowledge;  infi- 
nitely good,  yet  One  who  declines  *to  turn  any  part  of  His 
knowledge  as  God  into  science  for  man.'  ...  It  would 
be  an  abuse  of  language  to  say  that  this  is  a  mystery. 
It  is  flat  contradiction."  Now  when  a  clergyman  can 
write  like  that  in  a  publication  that  goes  almost  ex- 
clusively among  the  educated  classes,  you  can  realise  how 
great  is  the  difficulty  which  is  confronting  modern 
thought  with  regard  to  the  personality  of  Jesus  and  the 
larger  revelation  of  the  Christ. 

It  is  not  possible  that  questions  like  this  can  remain 
always  unanswered,  that  they  should  ever  be  asked  and 
no  reply  be  found ;  Christendom  inevitably  must  work  its 


12  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

way  to  some  reasonable  solution,  and  find  how  in  that 
marvellous  personality  there  was  a  divine  revelation  as 
men  have  hoped  and  believed,  and  how  there  is  an 
answer,  although  orthodoxy  as  yet  may  not  be  prepared 
to  give  it.  And  if  you  pass  from  religion  proper,  as  we 
may  say,  to  the  great  domain  of  morals  which  is  so 
closely  bound  up  with  it,  see  how  difficult  is  the  position 
at  the  present  time.  Now,  since  I  was  last  here  in  London, 
you  have  had  a  Moral  Education  Congress,  to  which  no 
less  than  twenty-two  of  the  European  Governments  sent 
their  best  representatives.  Intense  interest  was  felt  in  the 
question  of  education  as  part  of  religion  or  apart  from  it. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  serious  social  questions  of  the  day, 
one  which  society  must  answer :  Shall  morals  be  based 
on  religion  and  sanctioned  by  religion,  or  can  they  find 
standing  ground  apart  from,  separate  from  it?  Now,  the 
ordinary  popular  answer  of  the  day  is  rather  in  favour  of 
the  second — ^that  morals  should  find  an  independent 
ground  apart  from  the  sanction  of  religion.  And  that  is 
not  unnatural,  because  the  quarrels  of  religious  bodies, 
their  disputes  over  the  question  of  education,  have 
practically  wearied  the  mind  of  England,  and  men  and 
women  get  impatient  with  the  struggles  over  trivialities 
where  the  moral  training  of  tens  of  thousands  of  boys 
and  girls,  the  future  citizens  of  the  country,  is  concerned. 
If  you  take  that  Moral  Education  Congress,  the  point 
was  put  very  strongly  and  very  plainly.  Here,  again,  in 
this  number  of  the  Hibbert  that  I  am  dealing  with,  we 
find  a  very  brief  article  speaking  of  that  and  of  the  rela- 
tion of  eduaction  to  religion ;  and  the  writer  speaks  of 
one  remarkable  speech  at  the  Education  Congress,  in 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART      1 3 

which  it  was  declared  that  while  children  should  be 
taught  "the  respect  due  to  the  idea  of  religion  .... 
they  are  to  be  taught  that  the  chief  mode  of  honouring 
God  consists  in  each  doing  his  duty  according  to  his 
conscience  and  his  reason."  Now  that  is  a  statement 
that  would  find  very  wide  acceptance  at  the  present  day, 
and  yet  its  value  or  its  lack  of  value  depends  on  two 
words,  "conscience"  and  "reason."  If  the  conscience 
be  unenlightened,  there  will  be  very  little  useful  service 
done  to  man  by  the  boys  and  girls  who  follow  that  con- 
science as  men  and  women.  The  enlightened  conscience 
is  truly  the  foundation  of  a  State,  but  the  unenlightened 
may  lead  men  into  every  kind  of  crime.  The  inquisitor 
followed  his  conscience  when  he  racked  the  heretic  and 
sent  him  to  the  stake.  Laud  followed  his  conscience 
when  he  persecuted,  tortured,  mutilated  Puritans  who 
would  not  bow  before  him.  Conscience  has  committed 
the  greatest  crimes  against  nations  and  against  individ- 
uals ;  conscience  must  be  enlightened  before  it  is  a  safe 
g^ide.  And  so  also  with  reason.  If  the  reason  is  devel- 
oped, illuminated,  cultured,  trained,  that  reason  might 
indeed,  be  followed  along  the  path  of  life ;  but  a  reason 
that  is  not  exercised  according  to  the  laws  of  logic  and 
right  thinking  may  be  as  irrational  as  though  the  name  of 
reason  were  not  applied  to  it.  It  is  not  enough  to  teach 
that  men  should  follow  conscience  and  reason  unless  you 
train  the  reason  and  illuminate  the  conscience. 

Now,  how  is  that  to  be  done?  It  has  been  done  in 
the  past  by  religion  to  a  very  great  extent.  Can  society 
afford  to  try  to  teach  morals  apart  from  religion  ?  Diffi- 
culties naturally  arise  here,  and  the  Bishop  of  Tasmania 


14  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

has  very  bravely  drawn  the  attention  of  the  empire  to 
the  difficulty  which  is  in  the  face  of  religious  teaching. 
He  points  out  that  the  Old  Testament  is  not  a  book 
which,  as  a  whole,  can  be  used  for  the  instiniction  in 
morals  of  the  Christian  child.  Can  the  Old  Testament, 
he  asks,  be  used  in  that  way?  and  the  answer  is  in  the 
negative.  He  points  out  that  you  can  find  in  the  Old 
Testament  magnificent  moral  passages  and  splendid 
moral  inspiration,  but  that  is  by  a  process  of  selection,  in 
which  you  apply  the  moral  conscience  to  discrimination 
in  ancient  writings.  Bishop  as  he  is,  he  is  brave  enough 
to  declare  that  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole  ought  not 
to  find  its  place  in  the  education  of  the  child.  Now, 
suppose  that  we  admit — and  most  thoughtful  people 
would  admit — ^that  you  must  select  and  choose  carefully, 
that  is  not  a  sufficient  answer  to  the  question.  Can  you 
effectively  teach  the  child  morals  without  falling  back 
upon  religion  ?  Are  you  prepared  to  admit  that  you  can 
teach  a  certain  class  of  virtues  without  religious  sanc- 
tion ;  not  those  which  are  the  favourite  virtues,  we  may 
say,  of  the  present  day  of  competition  and  of  struggle? 
You  can  teach  a  child  to  be  prudent,  thrifty,  cautious ; 
you  can  teach  him  the  value  of  acquisitiveness,  and  the 
duty  of  providing  for  the  future.  All  that  kind  of  virtue 
you  may  be  able  to  teach  on  a  purely  utilitarian  ground, 
as  it  is  called,  but,  as  is  again  pointed  out  in  a  remark- 
ably able  article  on  "The  Social  Conscience  of  the 
Future,"  certain  old-fashioned  traits,  once  considered  to 
be  virtues,  are  now  commonly  accounted  to  men  for 
vices.  Non-resistance,  for  example,  "is  now  considered 
cowardice;  meekness  to-day  is  usually  spelt  weakness; 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART      1 5 

taking  no  thought  for  the  morrow  is  known  as  improvi- 
dence ;  unworldliness  is  generally  viewed  as  a  phase  of 
sentimentality."  That  is  all  quite  true.  But  how  are 
you  going  to  teach  the  virtues  that  hitherto  have  been 
rooted  in  religion — ^virtues  without  which  no  State  can 
endure?  For  you  cannot  teach  the  civic  virtues  on  a 
basis  of  enlightened  selfishness.  That  is  a  point  that  all 
educators  of  the  young  must  remember.  Self-sacrifice, 
compassion,  the  willingness  to  endure  for  the  sake  of 
others,  the  taking  of  the  burden  of  the  weak  on  the 
shoulders  that  are  strong,  the  realisation  that  duty  is 
greater  than  rights,  and  responsibility  more  vital  than 
self-protection — how  are  you  going  to  teach  those  virtues 
on  the  basis  of  selfishness  ?  Now  I  have  argued  that  in 
the  old  days,  and  have  tried  to  show,  in  the  time  when  I 
was  a  sceptic,  that  you  might  train  people  to  self-sacrifice 
and  self-surrender  by  an  appeal  to  the  humanity  within 
them,  and  the  sense  of  duty  to  the  race ;  but  that  appeal 
fails  the  most  readily  in  the  cases  where  the  virtues  are 
most  required. 

It  appeals  to  the  noble,  but  the  majority  are  not 
noble ;  it  appeals  to  the  unselfish  and  the  heroic,  but  the 
majority  are  of  mediocre  courage  and  of  very  limited 
unselfishness;  it  appeals  to  those  who  do  not  need  it, 
and  it  leaves  cold  and  unmoved  those  who  need  it  most. 
Will  you  go  to  the  millionaire  who  has  built  up  his  vast 
fortune  by  the  ruin  of  hundreds  of  families,  and  speak  to 
him  of  the  beauty  of  self-sacrifice  and  the  splendour  of 
self-surrender  ?  The  answer  of  people  of  the  selfish  type 
is:  Why  should  I  sacrifice  myself  for  the  future?  or, 
as  the  witty  Frenchman  put  it:  "What  has  posterity 


l6  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

done  for  me  that  I  should  sacrifice  myself  for  posterity  ?" 
You  may  say  that  is  very  mean,  very  selfish.  It  is ;  but 
then,  those  are  the  people  who  want  the  compulsory 
force  of  moral  strength  applied  to  them.  Where  are 
you  going  to  find  it?  For  without  self-sacrifice  no 
society  is  secure ;  without  self -surrender  of  the  small  to 
the  great,  of  the  individual  to  the  social  self,  there  is 
no  possibility  of  national  life,  no  stability  in  the  social 
system ;  and  those  are  virtues  that  grow  out  of  religion, 
not  out  of  what  is  falsely  called  utility.  The  greatest 
utility  for  the  nation  is  that  which  understands  the 
relationship  between  the  part  and  the  whole,  and  that  is 
only  taught  by  religion  which  knows  the  larger  Self, 
which  knits  man  to  the  whole,  makes  him  realise  relation- 
ships, makes  him  know  he  is  not  a  creature  of  one  little 
globe,  but  a  creature  of  the  universe ;  that  he  is  a  cosmic 
life,  and  not  a  planetary.  That  is  learned  by  religion 
only,  and  by  the  deathless  immortality  of  the  divine  Spirit 
in  man ;  without  that,  no  morality  will  endure ;  and  you 
will  make  a  fatal  blunder  if,  because  of  the  passing  follies 
of  religionists,  you  throw  religion  out  of  its  place  in 
education,  of  which  it  is  the  inspiration  and  the  strength. 
These  are  some  of  the  problems  you  have  to  deal  with 
in  this  deadlock,  as  I  have  called  it,  of  religion.  In  fact, 
you  want  a  new  religious  and  moral  synthesis;  and 
you  cannot  find  that  without  the  higher  inspiration  for 
which  man  is  groping  now. 

II. — Science. 

Let  us  leave  that  deadlock — (I  will  try  to  solve  it  in 
another  lecture) — ^and  let  us  take  the  deadlock  in  science. 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART      1 7 

Now  that  is  very  curious  at  the  present  time.  Science 
is  essentially  in  the  West,  as  it  is  everywhere,  a  matter  of 
observation,  of  measurement,  of  estimatingquantities  and 
understanding  relations.  But  our  science  is  coming  to  the 
end  of  its  powers  along  these  lines  in  a  very  curious  and 
marked  way.  It  cannot  get  its  apparatus  more  delicate 
than  it  has  got  it;  its  balances  are  marvels,  measuring 
inappreciable  parts  of  an  almost  inappreciable  grain. 
Nothing  more  exquisite  than  the  delicacy  of  scientific 
apparatus,  nothing  more  a  testimony  to  the  accuracy  of 
the  scientific  mind.  And  yet  how  the  apparatus  is  fail- 
ing the  scientist!  how  his  observations  are  becoming 
increasingly  difficult !  What  can  he  do  with  the  atom  ? 
The  chemist,  the  physicist,  can  he  follow  the  atom  and 
make  that  still  a  matter  of  observation,  or  does  it  wholly 
escape  him?  is  the  chemist,  the  physicist,  now  obliged 
to  turn  to  the  mathematician  to  make  for  him  an  atom 
which  will  answer  the  demands  of  the  science  which  is 
unable  to  discover  it  for  itself  ?  All  the  later  arguments 
on  the  atom,  if  you  notice,  are  based  on  mathematical 
formulae;  they  cannot  observe;  it  is  too  fine,  delicate, 
minute — it  escapes  them.  Even  the  chemical  atom, 
which  is  four  degrees  below  the  ultimate  physical  atom, 
is  a  matter  on  which  they  are  compelled  to  reason  be- 
cause they  cannot  observe.  But  a  science  which  rea- 
sons without  those  reasons  being  based  on  observations 
is  no  science  as  the  West  has  known  it  up  to  the  present 
time.  All  scientific  reasoning  is  supposed  to  be  based 
on  observation;  and  if,  instead  of  that,  scientists  have 
to  fall  back  on  reason  where  observation  fails  them, 
then  a  new  method  must  be  discovered,  and  new  ways 

2 


1 8  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

must  be  trodden.  I  do  not  say  there  is  no  new  method ; 
I  do  not  say  there  are  not  new  ways ;  but  they  are  not 
the  methods  and  the  ways  of  the  science  of  our  own 
time.  And  there  comes  in  this  difficulty :  the  minute  is 
escaping  science  by  its  minuteness,  the  subtle  is  too  subtle 
for  its  investigation.  If  that  be  true — and  it  is  true  of 
chemistry  and  physics,  and  true  also  to  a  very  great 
extent  of  electricity — we  find  that  all  the  sciences  are 
coming  up  to  the  borderland  in  which  their  methods  fail 
them,  and  their  senses  no  longer  answer  to  the  delicacy 
of  the  waves  that  beat  upon  them  from  the  outer  world 
They  are  leaving  behind  them  the  gross  and  the  dense ; 
that  is  conquered,  it  is  theirs ;  the  subtle  and  the  rare, 
those  escape  them;  and  the  instruments  of  brass,  of 
glass,  nay,  even  of  sensitive  needles,  they  are  not  fine 
enough  nor  subtle  enough  to  carry  investigation  further. 
In  other  realms  of  science  the  same  difficulties  are 
arriving.  Psychology — where  have  all  the  facts  of  the 
new  psychology  come  from?  From  scientific  men  ?  Not  a 
bit  of  it !  From  frauds  and  charlatans,  from  mesmerists 
and  spiritualists  and  theosophists,  and  all  these  "ists" 
that  popular  science  looks  down  upon  and  says  are 
entirely  outside  the  pale  of  scientific  respect.  And  yet 
from  these  they  gather  their  facts,  from  these  they  are 
obliged  to  take  the  strange  new  psychological  facts  that 
are  revolutionising  all  the  ideas  of  consciousness  and 
the  powers  which  lie  hidden  in  the  human  mind.  Those 
facts  are  accumulating  from  the  hands  of  all  these  im- 
proper people,  and  when  science  gets  them  it  cannot 
explain  them.  It  can  only  rearrange  them  and  rename 
them,  and  call  mesmerism  "hypnotism,"  and  clairvoyance 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART  I9 

"autoscopy."  But  all  that  relabelling  and  all  that  re- 
arranging cannot  veil  the  fundamental  fact  that  it  has  no 
theory  into  which  these  facts  can  fit,  and  no  explanation 
which  arranges  them  in  a  rational  order.  In  psychology,  as 
in  chemistry,  physics,  and  electricity,  there  is  a  deadlock. 
And  medicine,  what  about  that?  Doctors  are  begin- 
ning to  think  less  and  less  of  drugs.  In  my  young  days 
an  honest  doctor  once  told  me  that  he  sometimes  gave 
coloured  water  and  bread  bills  to  people  whom  he  knew 
would  get  on  much  better  if  they  did  not  have  drugs,  but 
they  were  so  determined  to  have  them  that  he  was 
obliged  to  give  them  something  so  he  gave  them  harm- 
less things.  That  idea  has  grown.  Doctors  have  less 
and  less  faith  in  drugs,  and  they  admit  more  and  more 
widely  that  their  medical  science  is  very  largely  a  hand- 
to-mouth  thing,  empirical,  based  on  no  true  theory — 
experimental,  as  they  say.  But,  in  despair  of  finding  the 
right  road  to  health,  they  have  gone  down  the  terrible 
byway  of  Vivisection,  trying  to  wring  from  Nature,  by 
the  torture  of  her  more  helpless  children,  the  secrets 
which  otherwise  they  were  unable  to  find.  But  that  is 
a  fatal  road ;  it  is  leading  medicine  further  and  further 
away  from  any  true  science  of  healing,  and  is  turning  it 
into  a  science  of  poisoning  instead ;  medicine  is  becoming 
a  matter  of  balancing  one  poison  against  another,  so 
that  in  the  middle  of  the  balanced  poisons  you  may  b'e 
able  to  get  some  miserable  remnant  of  health.  When 
doctors  find  something  they  do  not  understand,  they  say : 
"Oh,  let  us  try  it  on  an  animal;  better  try  it  on  an 
animal  than  a  man."  Yes ;  but  if  the  animal  does  not 
give  the  same  result,  and  if  that  which  is  poison  to  man 


20  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

is  not  poison  to  the  animal,  then  the  results  of  your  ex- 
periment may  be  a  widespread,  unintentional  poisoning 
added  to  the  intentional  poisonings  of  the  day.  There 
comes  in  one  danger,  that  perhaps  may  make  people 
rather  less  ready  to  take  the  results  of  vivisection.  Take 
henbane:  goats  feed  quite  comfortably  on  henbane;  it 
would  kill  you.  If,  when  people  wanted  to  know  the 
effects  of  henbane  on  the  human  system,  they  tried  it  on 
goats,  many  human  deaths  would  have  followed  on  the 
result  of  that  particular  use  of  the  experimental  method. 
What  is  being  done  with  all  these  miserable  results  of 
this  mistaken  and  blinded  science,  all  these  serums  and 
toxins,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  things  which  they  are  now 
pouring  into  the  human  body?  They  are  lowering  the 
vitality  of  the  race;  they  are  diminishing  the  disease- 
resisting  power  of  the  man.  I  do  not  say  that  you 
cannot  make  a  man  immune  for  a  time  by  slowly  poison- 
ing him,  so  that  when  a  dose  of  the  poison  comes  it  will 
have  no  effect.  You  can  do  it  with  arsenic ;  you  can  put 
so  much  arsenic  into  a  human  body  that  the  arsenic- 
poisoned  person  can  take  a  dose  of  arsenic  without 
death.  Do  you  tell  me  that  is  health?  I  say  it  is 
disease,  and  that  all  these  miserable  methods  are  lower- 
ing the  vitality  of  the  human  body,  and  making  it  a  prey 
to  innumerable  diseases  under  the  pretence  of  saving  it 
from  a  few.  Health  is  not  got  by  poisonings,  however 
carefully  graduated.  Health  is  brought  about  by  pure 
living,  pure  food,  moral  self-control,  and  by  becoming 
the  master  and  not  the  slave  of  your  appetites  and 
passions.  It  is  a  road  that  leads  to  death,  and  not  to 
life,  when  you  want  to  live  evilly,  and  be  cured  of  the 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART     21 

results  of  evil  living  out  of  the  things  which  are  wrung 
from  the  tortured  bodies  of  the  animal  kingdom.  And  so 
there  again  there  is  a  deadlock,  for  even  the  vivisection- 
ists  are  beginning  to  be  a  little  afraid  of  the  results  that 
they  have  drawn  from  their  investigations.  There  are 
answers  to  the  problems  of  disease,  but  they  do  not  lie 
along  this  line. 

III.— Art. 

What  of  art  ?  Now,  very  many  people,  I  am  afraid,  in 
this  and  other  countries,  do  not  realise  that  beauty  is  a 
necessity  of  daily  life  for  the  human  being,  and  when  he 
does  not  get  it  he  is  less  man,  less  woman,  than  he  ought 
to  be.  It  is  not  a  question  as  to  whether  you  should 
have  a  beautiful  thing  as  a  luxury ;  it  is  a  necessity,  and 
it  should  be  the  daily  bread  of  life.  Nations  which  knew 
the  value  of  beauty  made  their  towns  beautiful;  their 
works  of  art  were  made  common  property,  their  build- 
ings were  exquisitely  proportioned,  their  architecture 
magnificent,  and  out  of  all  that,  open  always  to  the 
masses  of  the  people,  grew  a  beauty  of  form  and  a  beauty 
of  mind  that  cannot  possibly  grow  up  in  a  nation  where 
the  towns  are  allowed  to  be  hideous,  where  the  air  is 
poisoned,  and  where  all  the  common  things  of  life  are 
ugly  instead  of  beautiful.  There  is  one  thing  in  India 
that  I  have  often  complained  of ;  it  will  not  strike  you 
here  so  much  as  it  would  inevitably  strike  you  there. 
The  old  Indian  life  was  a  life  full  of  beauty.  Even  now, 
out  in  the  villages,  life  is  beautiful.  The  garments  of 
men  and  women  alike  are  graceful,  flowing,  exquisite  in 
colour.     If  you  see  an  Indian  peasant  woman  working  in 


22  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  fields  she  is  a  picture  to  paint,  for  the  grace  of  her 
drapery,  for  the  beauty  of  the  colours  that  she  wears; 
and  if  you  see  her  going  to  the  village  well  to  draw  water, 
she  will  carry  on  her  head  some  vessel,  it  may  be  of 
beaten  bronze  or  copper,  it  may  be  of  kneaded  clay,  it 
will  always  be  beautiful  in  form  and  exquisite  in  colour, 
Nowadays,  since  our  civilisation  has  spread  its  power 
through  India,  things  are  changing;  aniline  dyes  are 
replacing  vegetable  dyes ;  kerosene  oil  tins  are  replacing 
the  exquisite  vessels  of  the  older  days.  In  the  old  days 
in  a  village,  when  there  was  a  wedding,  every  house 
contributed  some  of  its  beautiful  vessels  for  the  village 
festival ;  but  now  those  have  been  cast  aside,  and  mis- 
erable tin  vessels  take  their  place.  It  is  only  a  small 
thing,  you  may  say ;  I  assure  you  it  is  a  very  great  thing ; 
for  to  kill  out  the  sense  of  beauty  which  comes  by  living 
in  contact  with  Nature — for  Nature  is  beautiful  every- 
where, and  contact  with  her  beautifies  the  human  face 
and  form  and  mind — the  killing-out  of  that  sense  of 
beauty  which  grows  out  of  the  mountains  and  the  rivers, 
and  the  meadows  and  the  groves,  that  is  a  national  loss, 
and  spells  national  decay.  The  garden  cities  you  are 
beginning  to  build,  those  are  not  mere  fancies  of  fanciful 
people,  but  a  wise  attempt  to  get  the  people  out  of  the 
hideousness  of  bricks  and  mortar  as  they  are  used  in 
England,  into  the  country,  where  life  still  is  fair,  and 
where  sunshine  and  colour  are  supreme.  The  life  is 
poor  where  there  is  no  beauty,  and  life  itself  grows 
common,  vulgar,  where  beauty  is  not  a  dominating  force. 
It  is  one  of  the  great  revelations  of  God  Himself,  for 
beauty  lies  in  perfection  of  harmony,  in  exquisiteness  of 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  AND  ART      23 

outline,  in  loveliness  of  colour,  and  all  those  things  are 
characteristics  of  the  Divine  Workman,  whose  mani- 
festation is  always  in  beauty,  while  wisdom  and  power 
underlie  it.  You  may  see  it  in  your  own  works  of  art. 
They  are  not  creative  but  imitative,  and  that  is  the  sign 
that  art  along  that  line  has  reached  its  ending  and  must 
find  a  new  inspiration.  Sometimes  people  say  you 
cannot  improve  upon  Nature;  but  you  can  show  them 
what  there  is  in  Nature  which  the  blinded  eyes  of 
ordinary  people  do  not  see.  Take  a  flower:  true,  the 
flower  is  beautiful;  a  little  nature-spirit  made  it,  and 
caught  as  much  of  the  divine  thought  of  beauty  as  that 
small  intelligence  was  able  to  conceive ;  do  you  tell  me 
that  when  the  artist  comes  the  divine  life  is  not  far  more 
largely  evolved  in  him  than  in  that  little  nature-spirit, 
that  he  cannot  catch  more  of  God's  thought  in  the  flower 
than  the  nature-spirit  was  able  to  express  ?  And  that  is 
what  the  great  painter,  poet,  musician  does;  he  hears 
and  sees  and  tells  the  thoughts  of  God  more  fully  than 
you  and  I  can  do  with  our  dull  ears  and  our  limited 
vision  and  our  clumsy  tongues.  It  is  there,  but  we 
cannot  see  it.  The  artist  is  the  revealer  of  the  divine 
beauty  in  form,  and  unless  he  can  do  that  he  is  no  true 
artist  at  all.  The  artist  has  yet  to  come  to  this  civilisa- 
tion— the  man  who  can  see  through  the  forms  of  the 
present  the  divine  idea  which  is  striving  to  express  itself 
in  new  ideals,  new  hopes,  new  powers.  These  are 
wanted  for  art,  and  these  shall  come  in  the  days  that  are 
dawning;  and  a  new  art  shall  be  found  in  the  new 
heavens  and  the  new  earth. 

So,  although  I  have  taken  you  to-day  along  a  dreary 


24  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

path — for  I  have  been  speaking  of  the  passing,  and  not 
the  coming — it  is  because  I  want  you  to  realise  in  the 
signs  of  the  world  around  you  that  you  are  in  the  midst 
of  a  closing  age;  not  only  that  you  may  know  it — ^that 
is  little — ^but  that  out  of  the  knowledge  of  the  closing 
you  may  prepare  for  the  race  which  is  to  be  bom.  For 
unless  you  understand,  you  cannot  guide  your  steps 
aright ;  unless  you  understand,  the  world  will  be  a  mere 
puzzle,  and  not  an  expression  of  the  divine  thought.  The 
age  that  is  closing  has  done  its  work,  has  trained  the 
concrete  mind,  has  trained  the  scientific  thought,  has 
developed  power  and  strength  and  energy — all  good  gifts 
of  God,  to  be  used  for  nobler  purposes  than  they  are  used 
for  to-day.  There  is  nothing  to  regret,  nothing  to  be 
sorry  for,  nothing  to  wish  otherwise  in  the  world  that  is 
dying.  It  has  done  its  work ;  but  it  is  ours  to  come  out 
of  the  dying  world  into  a  world  that  is  new,  and  it  is  out 
of  the  dying  into  the  coming  world  that  I  would  fain  try 
to  lead  your  thoughts,  and  perhaps  your  lives  as  well. 


Lecture  II 

The  Deadlock  in  Social  Conditions: 
Luxury  and  Want  Face  to  Face 

Friends:  I  am  to  speak  to  you  to-night  on  a  subject 
which  is  a  little  outside  our  ordinary  theosophical  lec- 
tures. The  Theosophist,  as  a  rule,  studies  and  talks 
about  causes  more  than  effects,  concerning  himself  more 
with  the  getting  rid  of  the  causes  of  misery  than  with 
the  effects  that  grow  out  of  those  causes  and  show  them- 
selves as  particular  forms  of  misery.  Because  of  that 
he  is  sometimes  called  unpractical.  But  that  is  a  mis- 
use of  words;  for  to  understand  the  causes  of  misery 
and  to  remove  them  is  far  more  practical  than  cutting 
off  the  tops  of  the  weeds  while  you  allow  the  roots  to 
remain  underground  to  reproduce  new  weeds  to-morrow. 
To  say  that  study  with  the  discussion  which  grows  out  of 
it  is  unpractical  is  very  much  as  though  you  declared  that 
it  was  a  practical  thing  to  send  out  nurses  and  doctors 
to  a  field  of  battle  to  cut  off  limbs  that  had  been  shat- 
tered and  to  nurse  the  cripples  back  to  health,  and  denied 
that  to  try  to  remove  the  causes  of  war  was  practical. 
Now,  I  admit  that  sending  out  nurses  and  doctors 
is  a  practical  thing,  but  I  allege  that  to  work  for 
the  substitution  of  arbitration  for  war  is  a  great  deal 

25 


26  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

more  practical.  So  with  the  particular  things  with 
which  I  am  to  deal  to-night.  I  am  dealing  with  effects, 
but  only  with  a  view  to  lead  you  on  to  the  study  of 
causes,  and  to  the  fundamental  changes  that  will  have  to 
be  made  in  the  building  up  of  a  greater  and  nobler  civili- 
sation. Part  of  the  way  to  turn  men's  minds  in  that 
direction,  and  to  give  them  the  necessary  impulse  of 
working  for  the  higher  and  the  greater,  is  to  show  them 
the  intoleral?le  nature  of  conditions  among  which  we  are 
living  to-day.  In  doing  that,  I  am  by  no  means  going 
astray  from  the  teaching  and  the  example  of  that  great 
and  misunderstood  woman  to  whom  I  owe  all  that  is 
happiest  and  best  in  my  life,  H.  P.  Blavatsky.  Some  of 
you  who  are  students  of  Theosophy  may  remember  that 
in  her  Key  to  Theosophy  she  speaks  about  the  misery  of 
the  East  End  of  London,  and  utters  words  of  praise  for 
the  attempts  which  were  being  made  to  change  it.  She 
did  a  good  deal  more  than  speak  words  of  praise;  for 
one  day,  after  I  had  been  telling  her  of  some  of  the 
piteous  sights  that  I  was  seeing  day  by  day  as  member 
of  the  London  School  Board,  as  it  was  then,  for  the 
East  End  of  London,  I  had  on  the  following  morning  a 
little  characteristic  note,  in  which  she  enclosed  a  couple 
of  sovereigns,  saying:  "You  know  I  am  only  a  pauper, 
but  give  these  to  the  little  children  who  asked  you 
yesterday  for  a  flower."  Similarly,  that  quick  sympathy 
with  human  suffering  came  out  in  an  instance  in  which 
very  few  of  us,  perhaps,  would  be  prepared  to  follow  her 
example.  She  was  going  to  America,  and  only  had  just 
money  enough  to  buy  her  ticket  across;  she  bought  it, 
and  on  the  wharf  she  saw  a  crying  woman  with  some 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  2^ 

little  children.  She  asked  why  they  were  distressed,  and 
the  woman  told"  how  she  had  bought  bogus  tickets  from 
some  scamp,  and  so  could  not  go  across  the  ocean  to 
join  her  husband.  H.  P.  B.  walked  back  to  the  ticket 
office,  got  her  first-class  ticket  changed  for  steerage 
tickets  for  herself  and  that  unfortunate  woman  and 
children,  and  passed  the.  voyage  in  the  steerage  part  of 
an  Atlantic  liner — a  very  practical  proof  of  the  brother- 
hood which  she  proclaimed.  Scv  that,  after  all,  I  am  not 
really  going  very  far  apart  in  taking  up  this  particular 
subject  of  human  misery  and  human  suffering,  showing 
you,  what  I  dare  say  you  know  well  enough,  some  of  the 
cases  which  should  stimulate  to  action.  And  if  you  say 
to  me :  It  is  an  old  story  that  you  are  telling  us ;  then  my 
answer  to  you  will  be  that  until  the  evils  are.  remedied 
it  is  necessary  to  repeat  the  story  over  and  over  again. 
Now  let  us  look  over  this  great  civilisation,  and  see 
what  I  have  called  "The  Deadlock  in  Social  Condi- 
tions." First  let  us  remember^  as  a  kind  of  prelimi- 
nary atmosphere,  that  the  great  civilisations  of  the  past 
have  perished  from  this  startling  contrast  of  luxury  and 
misery,  and  that  what  has  happened  over  and  over  again 
in  the  past  might  quite  well  repeat  itself  amongst  us-  to- 
day. For  we  are  no  stronger  in  our  civilisation  than 
wer^  the  civilisations  of  Rome,  of  Assyria,  of  Egypt; 
and  we  find  in  the  Egyptian  civilisation  just  the  same  sort 
of  questions  arising  then  as  arise  now,  as  though  the 
world  really  had  not  progressed  in  this  respect.  In  some 
of  the  unburied  tablets  and  sculptures  we  find  an  edict 
about  the  wages  of  the  workpeople,  and  how  they  were 
to  be  told  not  to  be  discontented,  and  not  to  refuse  to 


28  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

work  because  they  were  dissatisfied  with  the  amount  of 
wage  that  they  obtained;  and  in  another  case  we  find 
directions  being  sent  in  order  to  meet  the  difficulties 
that  had  been  caused  by  what  we  in  our  own  time  should 
call  a  strike  of  working  people.  The  difficulties  are  very 
old,  and  the  world  has  not  yet  solved  them.  It  is  in  the 
hope  that  the  coming  civilisation  will  solve  them  that 
I  am  drawing  your  attention  again  to  them  to-night. 
Now  even  here  we  have  what  we  call  our  submerged 
classes,  and  those  form  one-tenth  part  of  the  popu- 
lation— a  terrible  proportion  if  you  come  to  think  of 
it.  Sometimes,  when  there  has  been  a  mutiny  in  an 
army,  a  regiment  is  drawn  up  rank  after  rank,  and 
every  tenth  man  is  marked  out  to  be  shot  while  the 
others  go  free.  That  is  the  condition  of  our  civilisation 
now — every  tenth  person  is  marked  out  to  misery.  In 
India  the  proportion  is  even  larger.  The  submerged 
classes  there  amount  to  one-sixth  of  the  population, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are  not  nearly  as  mis- 
erable as  are  the  corresponding  clashes  here:  they  are 
more  despised,  but  they  are  far  happier,  partly  because 
the  belief  in  which  they  have  grown  up,  under  the 
thousands  of  years  that  lie  behind  them  in  that  civilisa- 
tion, has  ever  been  that  a  man's  condition  in  the  pres- 
ent is  due  to  causes  that  he  himself  has  set  going  in 
tlie  past.  So  that  tbose  people,  instead  of  -blaming  their 
neighbours,  blame  themselves  for  the  discomfort  of  their 
own  position,  and  sometimes  determine  that  their  next 
birth  shall  be  a  happier  one  by  making  the  very  best 
they  can  of  the  disadvantages  here.  Then,  again,  pov- 
erty there  is  really  not  as  terrible  as  here ;  you  read  of  a 


THE  DETADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  29 

famine  that  sweeps  away  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the 
people,  but  is  that  really  so  very  much  more  terrible  than 
the  continual  condition  of  underfeeding  in  which  our 
submerged  classes  live?  The  Registrar-General  does 
not  mark  them  down  "Died  of  Starvation" — that  would 
be  shocking  the  public  taste;  but  if  you  look  into  the 
matter  you  will  see  tbat  when  the  starved  sempstress 
going  home  carrying  her  work  is  struck  by  an  east  wind 
that  whistles  through  her  thin  clothing  and  strikes  on 
her  underfed  body^  she  is  put  down  in  the  report  as 
"Died  of  pneumonia,  bronchitis,  or  consumption,'^  but 
in  karma*s  record  she  is  marked  down  "Died  of  star- 
vation," for  it  is  the  perennial  underfeeding  that  brings 
about  the  great  mortality  among  the  poor.  I  need  only 
take  a  very  few  cases  as  examples  in  order  to  show  you 
what  this  poverty  means.  I  have  taken  them  out  of  cas- 
ual papers  during  the  last  week:  from  my  own  experi- 
ence of  the  past  I  know  them  not  to  be  exaggerated, 
but  these  particular  cases  happen  to  be  going  on  just 
now.  One  of  them  is  the  case  of  the  women  who  sew 
on  cards  the  hooks  and  eyes  which  we  buy  very  cheaply 
in  the  shops.  Such  a  woman  sews  nearly  47,000  hooks 
and  eyes  for  is.  2  i-2d. — a,  thousand  almost  per  farthing. 
Think  what  it  means.  Naturally  she  pulls  in  her  children 
to  help  her;  and  so  the  children,  who  are  obliged  to  go 
to  school,  for  we  have  compulsory  education,  when  they 
come  back  from  learning  their  lessons  have  to  sit  down 
and  set  to  work  linking  the  hooks  and  the  eyes  together 
so  as  to  save  a  little  of  the  mother's  time,  and  the 
children,  who  ought  to  be  playing  and  building  up  strong 
and  healthy  bodies,  are  kept  there  hour  after  hour  pre- 


30  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

paring  the  hofoks  and  eyes  for  which  the  mother  is  to 
receive  the  princely  payment  that  I  have  mentioned. 
Take  another  case  that  everybody  knows — shirt-making : 
IS.  a  dozen  for  men's  shirts,  and  there  is  a  fair  amount 
of  work  in  those;  even  that  is  not  the  lowest  depth, 
for  the  woman  who  takes  them  out  to  make  at  is.  per 
dozen  lets  them  out  again  at  8d.  per  dozen  to  a  woman 
more  miserable  than  herself.  And  so  the  thing  goes  on, 
home  after  home,  person  after  person.  This  and  the 
preceding  case  I  am  taking  from  the  last  issue  of  Tlve 
Christian  Commonwealth.  Another  case  is  mentioned 
there  of  a  woman  who  had  been  working  along  these 
lines;  her  particular  work,  I  think,  was  5d.  per  dozen 
for  collars,  and  find  your  own  thread.  She  was  brought 
up  as  a  typical  case  before  the  Royal  Commission.  We 
are  always  ready  to  appoint  Royal  Commissions,  but  not 
very  much  comes  out  of  them  after  they  have  taken 
evidence.  She  was  asked  by  a  -Member  of  Parliament : 
"How  do  you  and  your  children  live  on  what  you  get  in 
this  way?"  "We  don't  live,"  was  the  answer  of  the 
woman,  and  she  spoke  truly.  She  worked  sometimes 
twenty  hours  a  day,  from  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  till 
two  o'clock  next  morning,  in  order  .to  get  enough  to  feed 
her  children  and  herself.  I  could  go  on  for  hours  giv- 
ing you  cases  like  this,  but  I  only  want  typical  ones,  in 
order  that  you  may  realise  the  conditions  in  which  so 
many  are  living  while  we  are  comfortable  and  at  ease. 
Pass  on  from  that  part  of  this  terrible  poverty  which 
nothing  apparently  is  able  to  touch  to  the  next  question 
that  links  itself  very  easily  to  what  I  have  been  saying — 
woman  labour  in  general,  and  especially  in  many  of  the 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  3I 

manufacturing  industries.  When  women  began  to  work 
at  mills,  and  so  on,  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  good  way  for 
the  women  to  add  something  to  the  comfort  of  the  home. 
How  has  it  worked?  It  has  worked  to  drive  down  the 
wages  of  the  men,  and  make  the  home  more  miserable 
even  in  money  matters  than  it  was  before ;  and  then  the 
home  has  ceased  to  be  a  home,  for  there  is  no  home 
where  the  mother  leaves  the  children  behind  her,  and 
goes  out  into  the  mill  to  earn  the  pence  or  the  shillings 
wherewith  those  children  are  to  be  fed.  It  has  been 
encouraged  for  the  reason  that  a  manufacturer  gave 
very  honestly  and  frankly  before  another  Royal  Com- 
mission. "Oh,"  he  said,  "I  prefer  to  employ  married 
women  because  they  are  more  docile."  That  is  true.  The 
married  woman  is  very  much  more  docile  because,  when 
the  question  of  any  resistance  comes,  she  thinks  of  the 
children  who  need  food  in  the  home.  The  baby  hands 
are  the  hands  that  make  her  docile;  it  is  the  baby 
fingers  feeling  her  bosom  for  the  milk  that  will  not  come 
that  makes  the  mother's  heart  docile,  yielding  to  every- 
thing for  the  sake  of  the  little  child.  It  has  only  made 
the  complications  of  the  labour  market  worse;  it  has 
only  driven  the  men  out  to  be  unemployed  in  the  streets, 
while  they  who  ought  to  be  mothers  in  the  home  are 
working  in  the  factory  instead.  So  the  labour  market 
only  becomes  more  choked,  the  wages  are  ren.dered  yet 
more  miserable,  and  the  men  are  thrown  out  while  the 
women  are  employed,  though  the  men  cannot  take  the 
woman's  place  in  the  home,  and  take  care  of  the  babies 
and  look  after  the  little  ones ;  only  a  mother  can  do  that, 
for  nature  has  made  mothers  for  that  work,  and  the 


32  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

father  cannot  take  their  place,  however  gentle  and  loving 
he  may  be.  So  you  get  another  problem  there,  hard  to 
solve,  difficult  to  set  right,  and  one  that  is  ever  growing 
more  and  more  pressing  for  solution,  that  is  ever  in- 
tensifying the  misery  of  large  numbers  of  the  working 
population. 

Pass  on,  again,  from  that — ^you  see  I  am  only  touching 
each  point — ^and  take  a  question  of  national  import,  the 
deterioration  of  the  physique  of  the  people  who  live  in 
our  large  cities.  That  has  been  going  on  now  for  gen- 
erations, and  it  has  been  shown  very  plainly  in  the 
lowering  standard  of  height  for  enlistment  in  the  Army. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  you  look  at  the  well-to-do  classes 
you  will  find  rather  an  increase  in  strength  and  physique 
amongst  them,  especially  amongst  the  women,  because 
these  take  so  much  more  part  in  outdoor  life  than  they 
did  in  the  past,  and  so  you  find  they  are  growing  taller 
and  stronger,  but  the  great  mass  of  the  population  is 
growing  shorter  and  weaker.  But  it  is  that  great  mass 
of  the  population  from  which  the  majority  of  your  na- 
tion comes.  They  reproduce  most  rapidly ;  they  are  the 
people  who  swell  the  Registrar-General's  returns ;  from 
them  the  future  nation  is  most  largely  produced ;  and  it 
is  no  good  to  have  upper  classes  strong  and  vigorous  and 
well-fed  if  the  mass  of  your  population  is  deteriorating 
in  strength  and  vigour.  There,  again,  you  have  one  of 
these  pressing  problems  which  it  is  necessary  to  answer ; 
for  these  problems  are  like  the  questions  of  the  Sphinx : 
the  Sphinx  put  the  question,  and  if  the  man  could  not 
answer  it,  the  Sphinx  devoured  him.  And  so  with  these 
problems  in  social  organisation ;  the  question  is  put,  and 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  33 

the  penalty  for  not  answering  is  to  be  devoured,  and  for 
the  civilisation  to  pass  away. 

Remedies  of  sorts  are  being  put  forward  by  doctors 
and  sociologists;  sterilisation  of  the  unfit  is  one  of  the 
favourite  nostrums  or  quack  remedies  of  the  day.  But 
such  remedies  are  worse  than  the  disease,  for  they  are 
brutal,  and  lead  to  deterioration  of  morale  as  well  as  of 
physique.  You  must  go  down  to  the  root  of  the  causes 
that  make  these  the  unfit,  and  not  bring  them  forth 
from  the  social  organisation  by  the  myriad,  and  then  try 
to  find  means  to  check  their  numbers;  and  so  on  that 
side,  again,  this  insoluble  difficulty  is  facing  us. 

Even  these  are  not  all  the  problems  which  are  set  for 
us  by  our  Sphinx  for  which  solution  is  demanded.  We 
have  seen  terrible  poverty,  we  have  seen  the  question  of 
woman  employment,  we  have  seen  the  question  of  dete- 
rioration of  physique  and  swift  multiplication  of  the 
unfit :  what  about  the  criminal  population  ?  We  manu- 
facture habitual  criminals  at  a  very  rapid  rate.  We  take 
up  young  men  or  young  women,  and  we  send  them  to 
jail  for  a  week,  a  month,  a  year,  five  years,  ten  years. 
It  goes  on  accumulating  until  the  habitual  offender  gets 
sentences  which  will  outlast  his  physical  life.  But  that 
has  done  nothing  to  cure  the  man,  that  has  done  nothing 
to  turn  him  into  a  good  and  useful  citizen.  The  law, 
when  it  grips  him,  ought  to  turn  him  into  a  better  type 
of  man.  Instead  of  that,  he  comes  back  over  and  over 
again,  until  the  very  habitual  criminality  that  the  law  has 
very  largely  made  is  brought  up  as  a  reason  for  the 
magistrate  to  inflict  upon  him  a  heavier  penalty.  But 
that  is  not  wisdom ;  it  is  folly.   Very  often  a  bright,  clever 

3 


34  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

lad,  full  of  Spirit,  falls  into  crime.  It  is  only  one  chance 
in  a  hundred  if  he  is  rescued,  and  does  not  gradually 
drift  into  the  ranks  of  the  habitual  criminal.  Surely  at 
this  stage  of  civilisation  there  must  be  some  better  way ; 
and  there  is  a  better  way,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  you  when 
I  come  to  deal  with  brotherhood  applied  to  social  life. 
If  we  go  beyond  these  extreme  cases,  and  look  at  the 
ordinary  questions  of  supply  and  demand,  of  production 
and  distribution,  notice  how  society  is  gradually  coming 
to  a  point  where  things  cannot  go  on  as  they  are,  and 
yet  where  to  change  them  means  the  dislocation  of  our 
whole  productive  and  distributive  system.  We  can  see 
it  best,  perhaps,  if  we  go  to  America,  because  in  'America 
there  are  not  the  softening  influences  which  to  some 
extent  at  least  still  prevail  here,  where  society  was  once 
based  on  a  more  human  foundation,  instead  of  merely  on 
the  question  of  cash.  We  see  what  our  systems  are  if 
we  go  over  the  water  to  America,  where  they  have  full 
play,  without  anything  to  prevent  their  complete  devel- 
opment. There  are  one  or  two  things  that  strike  us  in 
America  of  a  rather  remarkable  character.  First,  the 
growth  of  the  man  who  builds  his  own  enormous  fortune 
on  the  deliberate  wrecking  of  the  small  fortunes  of  oth- 
ers. Let  me  give  an  example.  A  large  number  of  people, 
mostly  rather  poor,  gather  together  into  a  company  in 
order  to  build  a  railway  that  is  wanted  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country  where  they  are.  They  want  quicker 
communication,  they  want  better  carriage  of  grain,  of 
goods,  and  they  build  a  railway.  It  is  working  fairly 
well,  it  is  paying,  perhaps  not  very  largely,  but  still  fairly 
satisfactorily.     A  much  cleverer  man  than  those  people 


THE  DEADLOCK   IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  35 

comes  along,  and  he  sees  that  that  particular  district  is 
one  that  is  likely  to  open  up  to  a  very  large  extent — one 
where  railways  will  become  most  valuable  property. 
He  sets  to  work  to  build  another  railway  that  runs  over 
the  same  ground  as  the  first ;  it  is  not  wanted  except  to 
make  him  rich.  He  then  begins  to  destroy  the  other 
railway  by  charging  smaller  fares  and  lower  freightage ; 
he  goes  on  doing  that,  putting  in  his  capital,  because  his 
rates  do  not  pay,  until  the  other  railway  is  driven  down 
to  the  impossible  level  at  which  he  has  fixed  prices  and 
fares :  when  the  shares  of  that  other  railway  have  sunk 
down  to  nearly  nothing  in  the  market,  he  steps  in  and 
buys  them  all  up;  when  he  has  bought  them  all  up  he 
lets  his  sham  railway  go  to  pieces,  and  the  whole  of  the 
district  is  in  his  hands,  and  he  piles  up  an  enormous 
fortune.  On  the  other  side  of  his  fortune  is  the  loss  to 
all  the  shareholders  who  put  their  money  into  that 
railway  in  order  to  improve  the  means  of  communication 
in  the  place  where  they  were  living.  They  have  been 
sacrificed  that  he  might  make  enormous  wealth.  Such 
men  are  called  "wreckers"  in  America,  but  they  are 
honoured  in  society;  they  build  hospitals,  and  even 
churches ;  they  do  all  kinds  of  things  with  fragments  of 
the  wealth  that  they  have  taken;  but  I  tell  you  that, 
although  not  by  the  law  of  the  country,  yet  by  the  law  of 
righteousness,  these  men  are  worse  and  more  to  be  con- 
demned than  the  burglar  who  steals  the  jewels  of  a  lady 
or  the  gold  plate  of  a  millionaire.  He  is  punishel  heavily 
when  he  is  caught,  and  he  deserves  to  be  punished; 
burglary  is  obviously  wrong;  but  worse  than  that  open 
burglary  that  the  law  punishes  is  the  hidden  burglary  of 


36  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  brilliant  brain  against  the  stupid  brain,  which  robs 
people  of  the  result  of  their  labour  in  order  to  accumu- 
late it  within  the  wrecker's  store. 

Other  forms  of  this  robbery  are  what  are  called 
"trusts"  and  "corners."  They  have  been  trying,  I  see, 
to  make  a  corner  in  wheat,  and  another  speculator  has 
been  able  to  checkmate  the  original  speculator  by  pour- 
ing in  millions  of  bushels  of  wheat.  But  people  are 
not  fed  any  better  whichever  speculator  wins;  it  is 
only  a  problem  as  to  which  of  the  two  should  be  able  to 
make  the  largest  profits;  and  then  the  trusts  are  built 
up,  whereby  a  few  men  are  able  to  make  enormous 
fortunes  and  kill  out  all  the  smaller  men.  Now  our 
American  brethren  are  getting  a  little  tired  of  that,  and 
they  are  trying  to  find  out  some  way  in  which  they  can 
prevent  it — some  Act  of  Congress,  some  law  which 
should  prevent  the  trust.  But  what  law  can  you  possi- 
bly pass  to  prevent  the  trust,  which  is  only  the  natural 
outcome  of  competition  gone  mad?  What  can  you  do 
to  prevent  that  without  crippling  also  every  one  of  your 
industrial  concerns  which  are  based  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple of  cut-throat  competition?  There  is  where  the 
deadlock  comes  in  again.  The  whole  thing  is  built  up 
on  one  man  fighting  against  another,  one  man  trying  to 
overreach  another,  one  man  trying  to  make  better  bar- 
gains for  himself,  no  matter  what  hapepns  to  his  neigh- 
bour— that  is  the  whole  method  of  what  we  call  our 
commercial  system.  If  that  be  so,  how  are  you  going  to 
interfere  with  its  natural  outcome,  with  the  inevitable 
result  which  grows  out  of  it? — the  same  principle,  only 
carried  a  little  to  excess,  and  so  shocking  the  conscience 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  37 

that  was  not  shocked  when  people  were  ruined  piece- 
meal, but  is  shocked  when  they  are  ruined  by  hundreds 
and  by  thousands;  yet  each  one  of  those  who  were 
ruined  piecemeal  suffered  as  much,  his  lot  was  as  unfor- 
tunate. How,  then,  can  you  cripple  the  excess  without 
undermining  the  whole?  There  is  another  of  the  prob- 
lems which  are  set,  and  yet  in  the  very  midst  of  it  there 
is  a  gleam  of  a  brighter  future,  for  in  that  great  alchemy 
with  which  the  mighty  Qiemist  of  the  world's  laboratory 
changes  the  forces  that  destroy  into  forces  that  con- 
struct, there  are  signs  that  these  trusts  which  have 
grown  out  of  the  greed  and  selfishness  of  men  will 
really  be  organisations  of  industry  which  will  be  useful 
to  the  community  in  the  future,  when  Brotherhood  has 
replaced  competition,  and  when  thought  for  others  takes 
the  place  of  only  thinking  for  oneself.  And  so  we  see 
possibilties  even  in  the  midst  of  the  troubles. 

Let  us  glance  at  another  side  of  this  problem — ^the 
attempts  which  are  being  made  to  improve  social  condi- 
tions in  newer  countries,  as  they  are  called,  say,  Austra- 
lia. In  Australia  the  working  classes  have  got  everything 
that  they  are  asking  for  here;  it  is  called  the  working- 
man's  paradise.  Every  boy  of  twenty-one  can  vote ;  think 
of  the  magnificent  freedom  of  it !  Every  girl  of  twenty- 
one  can  vote;  what  more  would  you  have?  No  need  of 
agitation  there.  But,  unluckily,  the  boys  care  much  more 
about  football  than  they  do  about  questions  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  girls,  perhaps,  are  thinking  more  of  bon- 
nets and  hats  than  of  the  way  in  which  their  votes  ought 
to  be  cast.  They  have  all  got  the  vote  and  they  do  not 
know  what  to  do  with  it,  and  that  is  a  very  common 


38  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

thing.  It  does  not  occur  only  in  Alistralia.  Has  it  ever 
struck  you  that  you  are  paying  in  happiness  for  what  you 
call  liberty,  if  you  mean  by  liberty  the  right  to  cast  a 
vote  ?  No  matter  what  your  qualifications,  that  is  quite 
outside  the  question ;  no  matter  whether  you  know  any- 
thing about  the  questions,  that  is  not  of  the  least  impor- 
tance ;  no  matter  if  your  head  is  as  empty  as  ever  it  can 
be,  it  counts  just  as  much  at  the  polling-booth  as  the 
head  of  the  wisest  statesman,  thinker,  most  highly 
trained  economist  or  historian.  It  is  an  admirable  way  of 
governing  when  you  come  to  look  at  it  from  the  outside 
standpoint.  Let  us  see  how  it  works  in  Australia  where 
they  have  it:  you  have  not  got  it  yet;  you  are  on  the 
way  to  it.  All  these  people  have  votes,  and  the  great 
majority,  as  is  always  the  case,  are  ignorant.  There  has 
been  class  legislation  over  here,  and  they  have  class 
legislation  over  there — ^it  is  not  a  good  thing,  only  there 
it  is  just  the  other  way  up;  and  the  effect  of  ignorant 
class  legislation  is  even  worse  than  the  effect  of  educated 
class  legislation.  Let  us  see  how  it  works.  First,  it 
works  for  a  gradual  diminution  of  efficiency  along  the 
ordinary  lines  of  work,  on  which,  remember,  the  whole 
prosperity  of  the  country  depends.  The  boy  who  is  a 
free  man  does  not  care  to  be  an  apprentice,  and  it  does 
not  to  do  tell  the  boy  he  has  done  his  work  badly,  because 
he  is  a  free  Australian,  and  off  he  goes,  and  he  won't 
work  any  more  if  you  tell  him  he  has  not  worked  well. 
But,  you  know,  nature  is  a  very  awkward  thing  to  come 
striking  up  against  in  your  political  and  social  life,  and 
her  laws  do  not  get  modified  as  you  might  think  they 
should.     The  boy  who  won't  learn  becomes  the  workman 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  39 

who  is  wanting  in  skill,  and  so  the  level  of  efficiency  in 
production  is  getting  lower  and  lower.  If  they  want 
a  piece  of  goh  machinery  they  have  to  send  over  here 
to  get  it — although  there  is  a  very  heavy  price  put  upon 
importing  it  into  Australia — because  the  work  there  is  so 
badly  done  that  the  machines  won't  work  properly  after 
they  are  made,  and  that  is  one  of  the  results  that  we 
are  seeing  at  the  present  time.  Another  one  is,  that  un- 
employment is  increasing.  There  are  men  in  the  streets 
there  just  as  there  are  here,  clamouring  for  work,  and 
asking  the  Government  to  give  it  to  them;  and  how 
do  they  get  there?  Very  many  of  them  because  they 
must  not  work  under  a  certain  wage,  which  is  not  a 
possible  wage  to  pay  for  the  kind  of  work  that  they  can 
do.  Suppose  you  happen  to  have  a  little  garden;  you 
want  to  have  your  paths  weeded  and  your  grass  cut. 
That  is  gardener's  work.  Now  a  gardener  must  not  work 
under  los.  a  day,  and  your  poor  professional  man  who  is 
at  a  discount  in  the  matter  of  votes,  and  has  a  fixed 
income,  cannot  afford  to  pay  lOs.  a  day  to  have  his  paths 
weeded,  so  he  goes  to  weed  them  himself,  and  the  would- 
be  gardener  goes  out,  and  is  unemployed  in  the  streets, 
and  calls  on  the  Government  to  find  him  work.  There 
is  a  very  serious  side  to  that  beyond  the  question  of  un- 
employment. If  you  are  going  to  make  the  men  who 
should  give  better  work  to  the  country  than  the  weeding 
of  paths  weed  their  own  paths  for  themselves,  then  you 
are  putting  a  check  on  the  whole  of  the  higher  kinds  of 
labour  on  which  the  nobler  national  life  depends,  for  it 
is  as  true  now  as  it  ever  was  that  man  does  not  live  by 
bread  alone.     If  you  are  going  to  make  every  man  do 

OF  THE 


40  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

manual  labour,  you  can  get  nothing  more  than  the  kind 
of  paradise  that  you  find  in  ''Looking  Backward,"  which 
is  more  a  paradise  for  the  respectable  suburb  than  for  a 
nation  that  needs  art  and  beauty,  music  and  literature. 
Those  things  want  leisure  to  produce  and  time  to  per- 
fect. There  must  be  education  behind  them  before 
they  can  be  produced,  and  it  is  a  very  bad  arrangement 
to  press  all  your  nation  down  to  a  low  level  of  comfort- 
able eating  and  drinking  and  amusement,  and  forget  the 
mightier  things  that  make  a  national  life — the  products 
of  genius,  the  creative  exertions  of  thought.  There  is 
one  of  the  greater  dangers.  You  cannot  blame  the 
poor  people.  'As  long  as  a  man  is  hungry,  a  good  meal 
is  the  one  thing  he  wants,  and  that  must  be  his  ideal. 
But  nations  ought  not  to  be  built  up  on  the  crude  ideas 
of  the  ignorant  and  the  hungry.  That  is  the  duty  of 
wisdom.  But  see  how  difficult  this  question  becomes; 
see  how  it  is  even  in  this  country,  where  still  education 
is  a  very  great  weight  in  popular  affairs,  even  though 
the  vote  ignores  it.  A  man  may  know  his  own  trade,  and 
be  able  to  give  very  good  counsel  and  advice  as  to  what 
is  necessary  for  that  one  particular  trade  in  which  he  is 
working ;  but  a  nation  is  not  made  up  of  one  trade ;  it  is 
ma'de  up  of  a  hundred  different  occupations,  every  one 
interlinked  and  interrelated  with  all  the  others,  and  you 
cannot  legislate  nationally  by  simply  looking  at  a  single 
occupation  or  a  single  class.  You  must  see  how  your 
law  reacts  on  the  whole  of  the  complicated  organism ; 
otherwise  you  niin  your  nation  while  you  lift  up  a  single 
trade,  and  that  is  what  is  happening  in  Australia. 
Certainly  some  of  the  trades  are  very  well  provided  and 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  4I 

arranged  for,  but  the  rest  of  the  elements  that  ought  to 
make  a  nation  are  disregarded,  and  life  for  them  is  made 
impossible ;  and  even  within  the  limits  of  a  trade,  some- 
times things  are  marvellously  stupid.  Let  me  give  you 
one  example.  Melbourne  is  a  large  city,  and  occasionally 
it  has  very  hot  weather.  The  trades  unions  there  have 
made  a  law  that  milk  shall  not  be  delivered  more  than 
once  a  day  on  Sunday ;  the  poor  man  wants  his  holiday, 
and  it  is  very  selfish  of  you  if  you  want  to  make  him 
work  on  Sunday,  so  that  milk  may  only  be  delivered  in 
the  morning.  Now  the  difficulty  is  that  the  cows  have  not 
yet  come  into  the  trades  unions ;  they  do  not  realise  that 
on  Sunday  they  are  only  to  give  milk  once  a  day  and  not 
twice.  Without  the  slightest  regard  for  the  beauty  of 
social  arrangements,  they  wilfully  persist  in  giving  milk 
in  the  afternoon  as  well  as  in  the  morning.  But  the  un- 
fortunate milkman  must  not  sell  it,  because  if  he  did  he 
would  be  turned  out  of  his  trade  union,  and  that  would 
mean  destruction.  So  he  has  to  keep  it;  and  if  the 
weather  is  hot  it  is  not  quite  so  good  in  the  morning,  in 
spite  of  the  boracic  acid,  as  it  was  the  night  before.  So 
he  mixes  up  the  fresh  milk  of  the  morning  and  the  stale 
milk  of  the  night  before,  and  sells  it  all  as  fresh  milk : 
and  though  you  may  not  discover  it  in  the  milk-can, 
the  baby  discovers  it  in  the  milk-bottle,  and  the  death- 
rate  of  the  children  goes  up  in  the  summer  because  of 
this  admirable  arrangement  which  has  been  made  with 
regard  to  the  distribution  of  milk.  That  is  not  the  way 
that  nations  can  really  be  governed;  and  there  are  all 
sorts  of  restrictions  of  that  kind  which  constantly  come 
up  against  you  in  the  home,  and  make  you  feel  that  life 


42  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

is  not  in  any  sense  free.  Things  of  this  sort  can  only 
succeed  if  certain  conditions  are  willingly  accepted  by  all 
the  people  who  have  to  work  under  them,  and  not  when 
they  are  imposed  for  the  benefit  of  a  particular  trade 
or  an  unwilling  and  reluctant  population. 

Let  us  go  one  step  further;  we  need  not  go  out  to 
Australia  now.  We  have  to  replace  competition  by  co- 
operation. You  may  say  that  is  being  very  largely  done. 
Certainly  very  much  has  been  done  in  co-operative  dis- 
tribution ;  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  are  full  of  success- 
ful co-operative  works.  How  many  are  there  of  co-oper- 
ative productive  works  ?  The  idea  has  been  tried  a  good 
many  times,  but  it  has  always  broken  down  for  two  rea- 
sons :  first,  that  in  production  you  want  one  clear,  strong 
brain  which  is  a  despot  over  the  production ;  you  cannot 
do  it  by  boards  and  committees  and  popular  votes,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  because  in  that  commercial  production  there 
are  many  things  to  think  of;  very  swift  changes  may 
come  about,  and  the  one  able  man  is  able  to  seize  the 
right  moment  and  to  lead  his  affair  to  success,  where  di- 
vided councils  and  delay  and  discussion  spell  bankruptcy. 
That  is  one  of  the  difficulties  with  regard  to  this  produc- 
tion. There  is  something  still  more  serious — the  want 
of  trust.  The  people  don't  trust  each  other;  they  are 
suspicious  of  each  other.  They  suspect  each  other  of 
personal  ends,  instead  of  honestly  co-operating  for  the 
public  good.  So  they  change  their  officers  continually,  and 
there  is  no  continuity  of  policy.  That  fault  of  want  of 
trust,  want  of  confidence,  imputation  of  bad  motives,  is 
fatal  and  must  remain  fatal  until  people  can  grow  out  of 
it  into  Brotherhood.  !At  the  present  time,  when  one  man 


THE  DEADLOCK  IN  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS  43 

born  among  the  working  classes,  as  they  are  called,  by 
ability  and  skill,  eloquence  and  application,  rises  into  the 
higher  social  ranks,  his  bitterest  opponents  are  to  be 
found  in  the  class  which  he  has  quitted;  and  when  he 
finds,  as  he  must  find — ^because  again  he  strikes  up 
against  great  natural  laws — when  he  finds  that  Trafalgar 
Square  remedies  are  not  workable  when  you  come  to 
put  them  within  the  four  corners  of  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, then  people  call  him  traitor,  deserter,  renegade, 
and  the  best  he  can  do  will  not  win  him  trust  and  confi- 
dence.    How  is  that  to  be  dealt  with? 

Oh,  you  say,  you  will  have  to  change  human  nature 
before  your  plans  will  work.  Exactly ;  that  is  precisely 
what  has  to  be  done.  Do  you  think  it  is  impossible? 
Human  nature  is  changing  every  day ;  human  nature  is 
continually  in  a  state  of  flux.  The  human  nature  of  the 
Middle  Ages  is  not  the  same  as  the  human  nature  of  our 
own  time.  When  knight-errants  went  plunging  about, 
fighting  and  the  rest  of  it,  it  might  very  well  have  been 
said :  "Oh,  you  have  to  change  human  nature  before  you 
can  get  people  to  sit  quietly  down  and  submit  to  the  law, 
instead  of  knocking  their  oppressor  on  the  head."  Quite 
true ;  but  human  nature  has  been  changing  through  those 
centuries,  so  that  instead  of  riding  out  to  right  your  own 
wrong,  you  call  in  the  nearest  policeman  and  submit  it  to 
the  arbitration  of  the  law.  Why  should  not  human  nature 
go  on  changing?  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  changing  before 
our  eyes,  and  the  changes  that  are  coming  in  it  are  the 
unfolding  of  the  divine  Spirit  in  man ;  the  outer  forms 
change  to  embody  the  unfolding  Spirit,  and  the  lower  hu- 
man nature  is  always  changing,  and  gradually  producing 


44  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

itself  in  higher  and  higher  forms.  In  the  very  midst  of 
this  struggle  and  competition,  this  misery  and  conflict, 
you  can  see,  if  you  will  open  your  eyes,  the  germs  of  a 
nobler,  higher,  more  brotherly  civilisation.  How  differ- 
ent is  the  social  conscience  from  what  it  was  even  a  cen- 
tury ago ;  how  different  the  common  feeling  of  responsi- 
bihty  when  wrong  things  are  done  and  misery  is  left  un- 
alleviated !  How  many  more  of  the  classes  that  are  called 
comfortable  cannot  remain  comfortable  while  they  know 
misery  is  outside  their  doors ;  how  many  are  beginning  to 
recognise  the  great  fact  that  whatever  one  has  earned  one 
holds  as  a  steward,  and  not  as  an  owner,  in  a  world 
where  all  men  are  brothers,  and  where  the  duty  of  the 
family  is  the  duty  of  each!  That  thought  is  spreading 
further  and  further,  wider  and  wider;  but  the  great 
change  must  come  from  above,  not  from  below.  Starv- 
ing, ignorant  men  can  make  riots,  sometime  even  revolu- 
tions ;  but  only  wisdom  and  love  can  build  up  a  new  civil- 
isation that  shall  endure.  I  remember  that  one  day,  when 
H.  P.  Blavatsky  was  asked :  ''Are  you  a  Socialist  ?"  her 
answer  was,  "I  believe  in  the  Socialism  that  gfives ;  I  do 
not  believe  in  the  Socialism  that  takes."  There  lies  the 
keynote  of  the  future.  When  those  who  have  are  ready 
to  sacrifice,  then  the  dawning  of  the  new  era  will  be  seen 
in  the  sky  that  is  over  our  earth ;  when  wealth  and  educa- 
tion and  power  are  held  as  trusts  for  the  common  good, 
ah !  then  will  come  the  laying  of  the  foundations  of  a  bet- 
ter and  a  nobler  State.  When  the  educated  man  and  wo- 
man remember :  "This  education  of  mine,  bought  by  the 
Ignorance  of  thousands  who  have  laboured  in  order  that 
I  might  be  educated,  really  belongs  to  them,  and  I  must 


THE   DEADLOCK    IN   SOCIAL    CONDITIONS  45 

give  it  back  to  them  in  service,  in  order  to  pay  the  debt 
that  I  have  contracted  to  them" ;  when  the  wealthy  man 
feels:  "I  am  a  steward,  not  an  owner  of  this  wealth 
which  has  come  out  of  the  labour  of  thousands ;  let  it  help 
the  uplifting  of  thousands" — then  Brotherhood  is  begin- 
ning to  show  itself  upon  earth.  When  the  gentle  and  the 
refined  realise  that  gentleness  and  refinement  are  meant 
to  be  shared,  and  not  shut  up  away  in  drawing-rooms  to 
guard  them  as  though  they  were  delicate  Dresden  china 
that  must  not  be  used  for  fear  it  should  be  broken — 
when  that  day  comes,  we  shall  be  nearer  the  beginning  of 
a  great  social  change.  It  must  be  by  renunciation,  by 
self-abnegation,  that  the  foundations  of  that  great 
brotherly  civilisation  will  be  laid.  In  a  family,  the  elders 
think  of  the  youngers ;  and  when  food  is  short,  it  is  the 
elders  who  go  without  it  in  order  that  the  little  ones  may 
be  fed.  So  in  every  social  movement  the  note  of  the 
higher  is  renunciation,  the  note  of  the  lower  is  love  and 
co-operation ;  then  they  will  blend  together,  and  each  will 
bring  what  he  has  to  give,  none  will  despise  another,  for 
everything  is  equally  necessary  for  the  building  up  of  a 
nation.  The  strength  of  the  navy,  the  genius  of  the  phi- 
losopher, the  skill  of  the  worker,  the  keen  brain  of  the  or- 
ganiser— ^the  whole  of  these  must  make  a  common  work ; 
and  none  should  either  despise  or  envy,  for  it  is  one  work 
which  is  being  made  by  all  for  the  good  of  everyone. 

If  you  say  to  me :  "That  hope  can  but  be  a  dream," 
my  answer  to  you  is,  that  as  man  is  divine  there  is  noth- 
ing too  great  for  him  to  imagine  or  too  exquisite  for  him 
to  achieve.  Think  highly  of  yourselves,  highly  of  your 
divine  possibilities;  realise  that  you  are  Gods  in  the 


46  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

making,  and  that  you  can  build  anything  to  which  you 
can  aspire.  Thought  is  the  mightiest  power;  the 
thought-image  first,  and  then  its  materiahsation  in  the 
physical  world.  But  it  is  not  enough  to  think ;  the  ma- 
terialisation here  has  to  be  made ;  and  there  are  signs  of 
that  in  the  great  Christian  civilisation  which  is  still  the 
dominant  power  in  Christendom.  For  men  are  beginning 
to  talk  now  not  of  heaven  away  beyond  the  clouds,  but 
of  heaven  here  on  earth;  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on 
earth  that  shall  surely  come,  not  only  in  the  ideal  but  in 
the  actual ;  a  civilisation  based  on  brotherhood,  wisdom, 
love.  That  is  what  is  going  to  be  done  in  the  world  just 
now  opening  up  before  us.  Men  are  no  longer  content  to 
be  happy  after  death,  they  want  to  be  happy  on  this  side 
of  death  as  well;  and  they  shall  be,  unless  the  prayer 
that  you  who  are  Christians  utter  day  by  day  is  only  a 
lip  worship  and  not  a  reality :  "Thy  will  be  done  on  earth, 
even  as  it  is  done  in  heaven."  It  is  on  earth  the  new  great 
civilisation  is  to  come,  that  Brotherhood  is  to  be  realised, 
that  the  nations  of  the  future  are  to  be  built  on  the  type 
of  the  family,  and  not  on  a  type  of  a  struggle  of  wild 
beasts  in  the  jungle.  That  is  the  future  to  which  we  are 
looking;  and  if  on  this  Sunday  and  last  Sunday  I  have 
drawn  the  darker  side,  it  is  to  show  that  because  things 
are  at  a  deadlock,  therefore  He  who  holds  the  key  of 
every  lock  is  near  to  His  return  on  earth.  In  the  Sun- 
days that  lie  before  us  I  hope  to  work  out  that  second 
side  of  the  subject,  to  show  you  how  these  things  are 
passing  away,  and  how  it  has  been  declared  in  the  higher 
world,  and  the  cry  is  echoing  in  the  lower :  "Behold,  I 
make  all  things  new !" 


Lecture  III 

The  New  Doors   Opening  In 
Religion,   Science,   and  Art 

Friends  :  On  the  preceding  evenings  on  which  I  have  ad- 
dressed you  we  have  had  our  attention  turned  backwards 
to  the  past,  or  we  were  glancing  at  the  present.  We  are 
now  to  turn  our  eyes  to  the  future,  and,  starting  from 
the  basis  of  the  present  and  of  certain  facts  which  are 
already  showing  themselves  amongst  us,  to  consider  wlir.t 
new  doors  are  opening  in  Religion,  in  Science,  and  in 
Art;  what  new  avenues  of  knowledge  are  beginning  to 
show  themselves  stretching  to  far-off  horizons — ^hori- 
zons, in  fact,  which  are  not  really  the  limit  of  those 
avenues,  but  only  the  limit  to  which  we  can  at  present 
pierce.  I  am  chiefly  concerned  to  endeavour  to  show 
you  that  this  promise  of  the  opening  of  new  doors  is  a 
great  reality ;  that  the  sounds  are  around  us ;  that,  as  it 
were,  the  doors  are  already  a  little  open,  and  we  have  the 
right  to  think  that  as  man  evolves  a  little  further  those 
doors  will  open  wider  and  wider,  so  that  the  race  may 
pass  through  them  to  a  wiser  and  a  happier  future.  In 
order  to  make  this  intelligible  and  clear,  I  shall  have  to 
ask  you  for  a  few  moments  to  consider  with  me  a  cc/tain 
view  of  man's  nature  and  constitution,  a  view  which  was 

47 


48  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

practically  universal  among  the  ancient  religions  of  the 
world,  which  is  indicated,  although  not  fully  carried  out 
perhaps  in  detail,  in  the  more  modern  faith  of  Christen- 
dom, which  is  revived  amongst  us,  and  is  being  taught 
all  over  the  world  by  means  of  the  Theosophical  Society  ; 
not  a  new  view,  but  a  very  old  one,  clothed  only  in  new 
garments  in  deference  to  the  advancing  mind  of  man. 
Now  this  view  I  must  put  roughly,  but  without  that 
statement  the  method  of  the  opening  of  the  new  doors 
would  remain  unintelligible.  It  is  briefly  this:  That 
every  human  being  is  fundamentally  a  spiritual  intelli- 
gence, appropriating  to  himself  portions  of  matter  in  the 
various  types  of  worlds  in  which  he  lives ;  that  that  spir- 
itual intelligence  commences  the  great  world-cycle  as  a 
germ  or  seed  of  divinity;  and  just  as  if,  where  you  had 
an  ordinary  seed,  a  grain  of  corn,  that  grain  would  not 
grow  and  develop  the  powers  within  it  unless  it  were 
planted  in  the  soil,  the  soil  whose  juices  nourish  it,  unless 
it  were  rained  upon,  and  unless  the  sun  shone  upon  it, 
so  is  it  with  the  divine  germ,  the  human  Spirit.  It  is 
planted  in  the  soil  of  human  experience,  whose  juices 
shall  gradually  enable  it  to  unfold  its  divine  possibilities. 
It  is  watered  with  the  rain  of  human  tears,  the  tears  of 
sorrow  and  of  pain ;  it  is  vivified,  strengthened,  enabled 
to  grow  by  the  sunshine  of  human  joy  and  human  de- 
light; and  out  of  the  contact  of  experience,  out  of  the 
rain  of  sorrow  and  the  sunshine  of  joy,  gradually,  gen- 
eration after  generation,  century  after  century,  mil- 
lennium after  millennium,  the  divine  germ  becomes 
a  divine  man,  perfect  in  the  manifested  powers  of  Deity 
enfolded  within  him  from  the  first. 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     49 

But  in  order  that  that  seonian  evolution  and  unfolding 
may  go  forward,  it  is  necessary  that  this  divine  germ 
should  come  into  contact  with  matter.  Hence  veil  after 
veil  of  matter  enwraps,  is  appropriated  by,  this  divine 
germ,  and  he  draws  around  himself — as  he  descends 
from  the  highest  heavens  down  to  the  earth,  through 
region  after  region  of  ever-densifying  matter — and  ap- 
propriates veil  after  veil,  in  order  that  by  contact  with 
that  matter,  which  alone  can  give  him  experience,  the 
powers  within  him  may  unfold  and  the  matter  that  he 
appropriates  may  become  his  servant,  his  instrument  of 
manifestation.  So  when  we  look  at  any  one  of  ourselves 
at  the  stage  that  we  have  reached  to-day,  we  find  a  spir- 
itual being  many  of  whose  powers  have  unfolded,  but 
some  of  whose  powers  remain  not  yet  unfolded  into 
manifestation,  and  we  find,  clothing,  as  it  were,  that  un- 
folding Spirit,  the  veils  of  matter  of  which  I  spoke,  no 
longer  mere  inchoate  veils,  but  bodies  more  or  less  defi- 
nitely organised  for  the  purposes  of  the  unfolding  life.  On 
our  physical  plane,  in  the  world  in  which  we  are  to-day, 
that  appropriated  matter  is  now  highly  organised,  and 
has  become  the  servant  of  the  intelligence  of  the  Spirit  to 
a  very  large  extent  in  the  more  highly  developed  human 
beings.  It  has  had  developed  in  it,  age  after  age,  those 
organs  of  knowledge  that  we  call  the  senses ;  five  in  num- 
ber at  the  present  time,  as  mankind  has  passed  through 
five  of  those  great  Races  that  I  likened  to  the  waves  of 
the  human  ocean  when  I  first  addressed  you  on  this  sub- 
ject. You  may  remember  that  then  I  spoke  of  ourselves 
as  being  in  the  fifth  of  those  great  waves,  and  also  in  the 
fifth  sub-wave,  as  we  may  say,  into  which  the  larger 

4 


50  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

wave  divides  itself.  Even  looking  back  along  our  ex- 
perience in  the  present  cycle  of  human  growth,  we  can 
see  these  senses  developing  from  their  earliest  incep- 
tion up  to  the  present  point  of  keenness  that  they  have 
reached,  one  sense  developing  in  all  its  stages  through 
one  of  the  great  Races. 

In  order  that  you  may  not  think  that  that  is  quite 
removed  from  experience,  let  me  ask  you  for  a  moment 
to  look  at  a  fairly  prominent  family  of  the  fourth  mce, 
the  one  that  preceded  our  own,  which  is  now  living  in 
Burma,  part  of  the  Indian  empire.  In  that  fourth  race 
as  a  whole  the  sense  of  taste  was  the  one  that  was 
gradually  evolving,  the  sense  of  smell  being  only  germinal 
and  rudimentary,  not  developed.  Now  if  you  go  among 
the  Burmans  to-day  and  inquire  into  their  diet,  you  will 
find  that  one  favourite  article  of  diet  is  fish;  but  not 
fish  freshly  drawn  from  sea  or  river,  but  fish  that  has 
been  caught  for  some  time,  buried  in  the  ground  until 
it  has  become  fairly  aged,  and  then  unburied,  to  form 
a  delightful  dish  on  the  Burmese  table.  Certainly  you 
can  well  realise  the  fact  that  in  that  fourth  Race  people 
the  sense  of  taste  is  very  different  from  what  it  is 
amongst  yourselves,  with  perhaps  one  exception  that  I 
ought  to  make,  that  I  believe  even  now  in  the  sense  of 
taste  in  some  people  finds  gratification  in  game  and 
venison  that  are  euphemistically  called  "high."  Well,  the 
fish  that  the  Burman  eats  is  very  high;  one  might  al- 
most, if  it  were  not  rude,  perhaps  apply  to  it  a  word 
more  like  calling  a  spade  a  spade,  and  call  it  rotten. 
Now  no  one  could  eat  such  food  as  that  and  find  it 
pleasant  if  the  sense  of  smell,  which  has  so  much  to  do 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     5 1 

with  the  more  delicate  savours  of  taste,  were  already 
well  developed  among  the  people;  and  I  take  that  as  a 
striking  illustration,  one  that  has  come  also  under  my 
own  observation,  in  order  to  make  clear  what  I  mean 
when  I  say  to  you  that  with  each  race  one  sense  is 
developed  and  the  next  sense  to  it  is  only  germinal,  and 
shows  itself  out  in  the  following  race,  through  which  it 
grows  to  higher  and  higher  perfection.  So  that  the 
mere  fact  of  the  five  senses  of  the  present  is  an  indica- 
tion of  the  point  at  which  humanity  is  standing,  and  a 
proverb — and  there  is  often  much  truth  in  proverbs — 
about  a  man  being  frightened  out  of  his  seven  senses, 
although  at  present  he  has  only  five,  may  serve  as  an 
indication  of  the  widespread  and  ancient  tradition  that 
man  has  two  races  still  through  which  he  will  evolve, 
and  senses  which  will  be  developed  as  those  races  gradu- 
ally develop  upon  earth ;  so  that  in  the  sixth  Race,  with 
which  I  shall  have  to  deal  in  these  lectures  this  day  fort- 
night, "The  Coming  Race,"  we  shall  be  looking  for 
the  development  of  a  new  sense,  the  sense  which  will 
make  the  next  world  on  the  other  side  of  death  as  pal- 
pable to  us  in  the  physical  body  as  the  physical  world 
is  palpable  at  the  present  time.  For  in  man  that  form 
of  vision  will  be  the  next  to  develop;  and  as  his  next 
higher  body,  the  astral,  becomes  rightly  organfsed,  then 
in  the  physical  brain  will  develop  pari  passim  the  organ 
whereby  the  knowledge  of  that  world  will  come  into  the 
physical  consciousness,  and  thus  enormously  widen  our 
outlook,  and  make  palpable  what  now  is  hidden  from 
the  eyes  of  most. 

Taking  this  view  of  man,  that  he  is  an  unfolding 


52  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

Spiritual  consciousness,  we  find  that  he  creates  for  him- 
self, as  he  unfolds,  more  highly  organised  bodies  of  mat- 
ter, so  that  the  double  growth  is  going  on  in  every  one 
of  us,  higher  stages  of  unfolding  consciousness,  subtler 
bodies  of  matter  by  which  that  consciousness  can  express 
itself  clearly  and  definitely ;  to  every  change  in  conscious- 
ness a  vibration  in  matter  answering ;  to  every  vibration 
in  matter  a  change  in  consciousness  responding ;  so  that 
there  are  side  by  side  the  unfolding  of  the  Spirit  and 
the  development  of  a  more  delicate  and  more  highly 
organised  b»ody,  the  difference  showing  itself  in  the 
ne-Kvous  system  as  well  as  in  the  mere  outer  configura- 
tion of  the  body.  Glance  again  at  that  fourth  Race, 
study  its  nervous  system,  and  you  will  find  it  very  dif- 
ferent from  your  own.  While  like  your  own  in  outer 
configuration,  while  the  differences  between  the  brain 
and  the  general  distribution  of  the  nerves  to  the  body 
are  not  great,  if  you  go  into  the  question  of  the  organi- 
sation of  that  nervous  system  you  will  find  that  an 
enormous  gulf  divides  the  fourth  and  the  fifth  great 
Races  of  mankind.  Again,  if  you  want  a  proof,  look  at 
the  amount  of  pain  or  the  amount  of  physical  injury 
which  can  be  endured,  say,  by  the  Chinaman,  in  com- 
parison with  what  you  can  bear.  Notice  that  an  enor- 
mous laceration  inflicted  on  the  body  of  the  Chinaman 
leaves  him  ready  to  recover  rapidly,  while  a  similar  in- 
jury to  you  would  kill  you  by  nervous  shock.  It  is 
not  the  question  of  the  mutilation — ^that  and  the  loss 
of  blood  might  be  the  same  in  each — ^but  the  fifth  Race 
man  dies  from  nervous  shock,  where  the  fourth 
Race    man     with    the    coarser     nervous    system     is 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     53 

able   to   recover,   is   able   to   re-establish   the  nervous 
equilibrium. 

Another  point  you  may  notice  among  yourselves  to- 
day, emphasising  as  you  do  in  your  own  Teutonic  sub- 
race  the  characteristics  of  the  great  Aryan  Race  to 
which  all  these  branches  that  are  spread  over  the  West 
as  well  as  in  India  belong.  Looking  at  that,  you  will 
find,  as  you  come  into  your  own  Teutonic  sub-race,  that 
nervous  diseases  increase ;  and  they  are  increasing  very 
rapidly  at  the  present  time,  far  more  rapidly  apparently 
than  at  any  other  period  in  human  history.  The  strain 
on  your  present  nervous  system  is  beginning  to  be  too 
great,  for  it  is  evolving  a  little  more  rapidly  than  the 
outer  world  is  evolving  to  meet  it ;  and  hence,  in  order 
that  you  may  not  suffer  from  continual  nervous  diseases, 
it  is  necessary  to  begin  to  refine  and  to  purify  your  lives, 
leaving  the  grosser  passions  behind  you  which  in  the 
course  of  evolution  you  now  ought  to  have  outgrown. 
As  the  next  sub-race  is  born — and  it  is  beginning  at  the 
present  time — the  nervous  system  will  become  more  and 
more  delicate,  and  keener  sense-organs  will  appear  in 
the  children  in  larger  and  larger  numbers.  Our  present 
organs  of  sense  will  first  become  intensified.  Then,  after 
much  intensification,  the  newer  organs  will  begin  to 
show  themselves — those  which  will  unfold  to  us  the 
world  on  the  other  side  of  death.  To  this  world  our 
astral  bodies  belong,  and  our  nervous  system  will  become 
finer,  and  thus  make  it  possible  to  register  our  investiga- 
tions more  completely  in  our  physical  bodies.  That  will  be 
one  point  that  we  shall  have  to  bear  in  mind  in  looking 
for  the  new  doors  that  are  opening.    But  not  only  the 


54  THE    CHANGING  WORLD 

physical  body  is  growing  finer,  but  in  addition  to  that 
our  next  body  is  organising  itself  and  gradually  unfold- 
ing its  powers,  the  body  that  we  shall  wear  on  the  other 
side  of  death  as  well,  the  body  that  we  are  wearing  now 
through  which  our  emotions  are  showing.  For  when  we 
pass  through  death  we  do  not  pass  unclothed  into  an- 
other world;  we  throw  off  this  denser  garment  of  the 
physical  body,  but  penetrating  that,  interfused  with 
that,  intermingling  with  that  now  is  the  finer  matter  of 
the  world  on  the  other  side  of  death,  growing  ready  for 
our  use  in  that  further  world,  and  organising  itself 
gradually  for  the  experiences  that  there  we  shall  meet. 
And  in  the  next  race,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  you  more 
fully  hereafter,  that  body  will  become  highly  organised, 
greatly  developed,  a  thorough  vehicle  of  consciousness 
as  the  physical  body  is  to-day,  and  by  the  growth  and 
organisation  of  that  the  new  doors  will  open  before  us 
in  Religion,  in  Science,  and  in  Art. 

I. — Religion. 

Let  us  see,  first,  how  this  will  affect  Religion.  The  un- 
folding of  the  deeper  strata  of  consciousness  will  bring 
our  inner  selves,  the  Spirit,  into  more  and  more  direct 
touch  with  the  spiritual  regions  of  our  universe.  I  am 
now  not  dealing  with  the  finer  worlds  of  matter,  but  with 
the  spiritual  realities  which  belong  to  the  spiritual  life. 
The  nature  of  God,  the  consciousness  of  His  presence 
everywhere,  the  recognition  of  His  life  as  an  indwelling 
power — all  these  will  become  fundamental  realities  for 
the  unfolding  Spirit  in  man.   I  pointed  out  to  you,  when 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     55 

dealing  with  the  deadlock  in  religion,  with  regard  to  the 
idea  of  God,  that  no  amount  of  reasons  addressed  to  the 
intellect  could  ever  lead  us  to  an  absolute  demonstration 
of  the  existence,  the  reality  of  God.  Probability,  yes; 
cumulative  evidence,  yes ;  but  demonstration,  no.  When 
a  thing  is  once  demonstrated,  no  further  challenge  arises 
about  it ;  when  once  a  fact  is  demonstrated,  no  one  any 
longer  asks:  Does  that  fact  exist?  and  we  have  been 
in  the  region  of  arguments  about  God,  and  not  of  that 
spiritual  knowledge  of  God  which  is  eternal  life.  How 
is  that  to  be  reached  ?  Not  by  any  effort  of  the  reason- 
ing intelligence,  not  by  any  upreaching  of  the  merely 
emotional  nature,  but  by  the  unfolding  in  man  himself  of 
that  Spirit  which  is  divine  in  its  essential  quality,  which, 
because  itself  divine,  can  respond  to  divinity  without, 
and,  because  itself  is  God,  knows  that  God  of  which  it  is 
the  offspring.  This  is  the  ultimate  truth  of  religion,  the 
human  experience  of  communion  with  God  in  the  depths 
of  the  human  Spirit ;  for  religion  is  only  a  groping  after 
God,  a  search  after  God ;  ceremonies  and  rites,  churches 
and  scriptures,  they  are  all  external;  they  can  never 
reveal  God  to  the  Spirit,  which  is  of  His  own  likeness 
and  image. 

Only  the  Spirit  can  know  Him,  only  the  Spirit  can 
find  Him;  while  it  searches  through  matter  it  can  only 
hope  He  is,  but  the  unveiled  Spirit  can  feel  the  unveiled 
Godhead,  and  by  the  identity  of  nature  can  know  that 
God  is,  and  is  itself.  And  as  this  inner  spiritual  life 
more  and  more  awakens  in  the  religions  of  the  world, 
man  will  know  the  truth  of  that  great  saying  of  the 
Christ :  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  As  you 


56  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

go  down  into  the  depths  of  your  own  being,  there  shall 
you  find  Deity,  the  conviction  that  God  is  and  must  be. 
For  you  can  strip  away  from  yourself  everything  that  is 
not  He,  until  only  He,  the  one  Self  of  all,  remains.  You 
can  mutilate  your  body  and  lose  your  limbs,  but  you 
remain.  Your  emotions  can  grow  worn  out  and  be 
withered,  but  behind  your  emotions  you  still  are  there. 
Your  mind  may  grow  weaker,  feebler,  may  become,  as  it 
were,  paralysed  for  reasoning,  and  yet  you  are  there, 
behind  the  failing  mind ;  and  if  you  are  willing  to  pass 
on  into  spiritual  experience,  to  let  your  emotions  be 
quieted,  to  let  your  mind  be  still,  then  in  the  silence  of 
the  emotions,  in  the  tranquillity  of  the  mind,  you  shall 
find  a  deeper  consciousness,  a  deeper  life,  a  more  real 
individuality ;  and  as  the  emotions  are  still  and  the  mind 
is  silent,  in  the  innermost  depths  of  the  Spirit  you  shall 
find  yourself  and  God.  And  then,  contemplating  that 
mighty  and  eternal  life,  you  shall  feel  that  you  share  it, 
that  you  are  part  of  it,  that  you  cannot  be  separated 
from  it,  and,  in  a  great  gush  of  experience  that  never 
again  you  can  doubt,  you  shall  know  the  reality  of  Deity 
in  finding  the  reality  of  yourself.  That  is  the  ultimate 
conviction  that  nothing  can  shake — ^that  the  human  ex- 
perience that  many  a  man  has  had,  that  for  him  has  trans- 
formed the  world ;  that  is  the  sure  ground  of  the  relig- 
ion of  the  future,  that  the  rock  on  which  a  true  faith 
alone  can  be  based ;  and  it  is  written,  and  truly  written, 
in  an  ancient  Hindu  scripture,  that  the  only  proof  of 
God  lies  in  the  witness  of  the  Self.  On  that  rock  religion 
will  base  itself,  fearless  of  all  attack,  of  all  assault.  No 
question  of  chronology  can  move  it,  for  every  man  can 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     57 

gain  that  experience  for  himself;  no  criticism  and  de- 
struction of  scriptures  can  tear  this  in  pieces,  for  it  is 
ever  renewing  in  the  perennial  life  of  the  Eternal  Spirit ; 
no  churches,  in  failing,  can  shake  it,  for  it  is  this  that 
made  churches,  to  help  in  its  own  searching;  nothing 
outside  can  touch  it,  for  it  lives  in  the  innermost  heart 
of  man.  And  in  that,  ever-opening  new  experiences, 
fuller  knowledge,  deeper  understanding,  more  abound- 
ing love,  and  unchanging  peace  and  bliss.  Everything 
else  may  go,  but  this  remains  unchanging;  and  as  out 
of  this  all  has  come,  the  perishing  of  the  transient  mat- 
ters not,  for  the  Eternal  Source  remains. 

But  that  is  not  the  only  new  door,  though  the  most 
important  one,  which  opens  to  religion.  You  remember 
that  I  said,  that  with  the  unfolding  consciousness  a  more 
delicately  organised  body  was  evolved.  And  so  we  find 
that  new  senses,  new  powers  awake  in  the  material  taber- 
nacle with  this  unfolding  of  the  divine  Spirit  in  man.  The 
senses  which  belong  to  the  higher  worlds  are  very  near 
to  the  opening  in  every  one  of  you ;  and  if  you  ask  me 
why  I  say  it,  my  answer  is  very  simple,  because,  taking, 
say,  any  dozen  of  you,  dulling  the  physical  senses  by 
what  is  called  mesmerism,  or  hypnotism  if  you  will,  so 
that  you  cannot  see  physical  things,  cannot  hear  physical 
sounds,  cannot  taste  or  smell  or  touch  so  that  the  senses 
answer  to  objects  outside — under  those  conditions  in 
about  ten  out  of  every  dozen  these  inner  senses  are  able 
to  make  themselves  manifest,  are  able  to  bear  witness  to 
the  existence  of  a  subtler  world.  Now  when  you  find  that 
by  an  artificial  process  of  that  kind  an  ordinary  man 
or  woman  can  be  made  what  is  called  clairvoyant  or 


58  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

clairaudient,  or  able  to  touch  and  feel  things  that  the 
ordinary  physical  touch  does  not  reveal ;  when  you  find 
that  by  stilling  the  physical  these  rudimentary  senses 
are  able  to  work — within  limitations,  but  still  to  work — 
it  is  a  fairly  clear  proof  that  man  is  on  the  threshold  of 
unfolding  those  senses  that  now  are  rudimentary,  and 
that  need  an  artificial  condition  in  order  to  show  them- 
selves. But  they  do  show  themselves  under  that  artificial 
condition.  If  they  were  not  there  they  could  not  show 
themselves,  no  matter  how  much  you  might  paralyse  the 
dense  physical  body;  it  is  only  because  they  are  there 
that  they  can  function.  But  when  the  rougher  senses 
are  active,  those  stronger  vibrations  dull  the  delicate 
vibrations  of  the  rudimentary  and  dawning  senses.  It  is 
only  because  they  are  present,  but  only  partly  developed 
that  you  are  able  to  make  them  manifest  in  the  great 
majority  which  might  be  taken  from  a  meeting  such  as 
this. 

Now,  not  only  is  that  true — and  I  mention  that  first 
because  that  is  practically  universally  recognised  by 
science  now^ — ^but  they  may  be  artificially  stimulated 
without  the  help  of  mesmerism  at  all.  While  that  is  a 
rough-and-ready  way  of  doing  it  with  anybody,  the  other 
means  requires  a  consciousness  unfolded  to  the  point 
where  the  fact  of  these  senses  is  recognised  as  probable, 
and  then  a  deliberate  and  sustained  efifort  to  bring  these 
senses  into  working  order.  Now  that  is  done  by  what 
is  known  generally  as  meditation,  and  meditation  is  only 
concentrated  thinking.  Anyone  who  is  able  to  pay  at- 
tention, any  one  who  is  able  to  think  steadily  on  one  sub- 
ject for  a  little  time  without  letting  the  mind  wander, 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     59 

is  ready  to  begin  meditation ;  and  most  of  all  are  those 
ready  to  begin  it,  although  at  first  sight  they  might  not 
look  promising,  who  are  capable  of  being  seized  upon  by 
a  single  idea  of  a  high  and  lofty  character ;  which,  as  it 
were,  takes  possession  of  them,  obsesses  them  if  you 
will,  so  that  they  become  martyrs,  heroes  for  the  idea 
which  has  gripped  them.  I  do  not  say  that  is  the  highest 
state — it  is  not ;  it  is  not  best  to  be  possessed  by  the  idea, 
but  to  possess  the  idea — ^that  is  a  stage  higher  still.  But 
the  power  of  being  possessed  by  an  idea  shows  that  you 
are  climbing  upwards  towards  the  realms  of  the  ideal; 
and  many  a  man  or  woman  who  is  marked  out  as  a 
fanatic,  as  unwilling  to  be  reasoned  out  of  their  foolish 
ideals,  the  dreamers  of  the  world,  the  Utopians,  the 
poets  who  dream  of  a  coming  golden  age,  those  men  and 
women  who  despise  the  present,  sometimes  irrationally, 
in  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  the  idea  that  has  possessed 
them,  they  are  treading  on  the  threshold  of  that  power 
of  concentration  of  the  mind  which,  when  they  have 
mastered  their  ideas,  should  carry  them  far  on — on  to 
the  next  stage  in  human  progress.  It  is  by  meditation 
that  these  senses  are  artificially  awakened ;  that  is,  you 
quicken  the  normal  workings  of  evolution  by  knowing 
the  laws  of  thought,  and  utilising  them  to  bring  about 
that  which  you  desire.  It  is  only  artificial  in  the  same 
sense  that  a  cattle-breeder,  when  he  wants  to  breed  a 
particular  type,  uses  those  laws  of  nature  that  help  him, 
and  avoids  or  evades  those  that  would  hinder  him.  He 
clears  out  of  his  way  all  the  opposing  forces  and  energies, 
so  that  those  he  wants  may  have  free  play.  So  with  the 
laws  of  mind ;  if  you  know  the  laws  of  mind,  the  laws 


60  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

by  which  consciousness  evolves,  then  you  can  use  them 
scientificially  to  develop  in  yourselves  the  highest  powers 
of  the  mind,  and  use  those  powers  of  the  mind  to  or- 
ganise your  subtler  body,  so  that  it  may  become  a  ve- 
hicle of  consciousness,  may  be  obedient  to  your  will  to 
know.  That  is  already  stirring  within  you;  hence  the 
nervous  troubles  that  you  have;  but  when  you  under- 
stand the  law,  you  can  evolve  the  finer  nervous  system 
without  peril  to  health.  Only  this  demands  rules  which 
many  people  kick  against,  a  physical  self-mastery  that  is 
not  popular  in  the  luxurious  and  ease-seeking  civilisa- 
tion of  our  time;  to  make  your  physical  body  only  an 
instrument,  to  allow  it  to  eat  only  what  you  choose  for 
it  as  best  suited  to  your  purpose,  to  allow  it  to  drink  that 
alone  which  suits  your  aim,  to  allow  it  to  sleep  just  as 
long  as,  and  no  longer  than,  conduces  to  that  object  that 
you  have  set  before  yourself — ^to  make  the  body  the 
servant,  and  not  the  master,  or  even  the  equal,  of  the 
Spirit — that  is  the  regimen  which  has  to  go  with  the 
quicker  evolution  of  the  astral  body  and  the  keener 
senses  which  belong  to  it.  Many  are  doing  it  amongst 
us  now ;  nature  is  doing  it,  but  not  so  rapidly  as  man  can 
do  it  by  working  with  nature. 

On  the  western  coast  of  America,  along  the  Calif ornian 
district,  where  the  electric  conditions  are  very  peculiar, 
one  of  the  games  the  children  like  is  to  run  along  the 
carpet,  rubbing  their  feet  along  the  carpet  as  they  go. 
This  charges  them  so  highly  with  electricity  that  if  you 
turn  on  a  gas-jet  they  can  put  a  finger  to  it  and  light  it. 
These  are  things  that  are  well  known  over  there,  and 
with  that  peculiar  electrical  condition  the  tension  of  the 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     6l 

nervous  system  is  higher,  and  so  these  senses  are  very 
much  more  common  there  than  they  are  in  our  damper 
and  less  brilliant  electrical  atmosphere.  That,  however, 
is  coming  for  all;  there  partly  by  natural  conditions; 
here,  if  you  choose  to  do  it,  by  deliberate  working  with 
nature  alonp;  the  line  of  evolution. 

Now,  what  will  be  the  effect  of  evolving  those  astral 
senses  ?  That  the  next  world  will  form  part  of  this  world 
to  you,  so  that  in  religion  a  large  number  of  things  that 
now  are  matters  of  faith  will  become  matters  of  every- 
day knowledge.  There  will  be  no  need  then  to  talk 
about  human  personality  persisting  on  the  other  side 
of  death,  for  you  will  see  your  dead  all  around  you,  as 
some  are  able  to  see  them  even  now.  Death  will  be  only 
going  into  another  room  in  the  house  that  we  are  all 
living  in,  and  even  the  walls  will  become  transparent,  so 
there  will  be  no  real  separation ;  it  will  no  longer  be  nec- 
essary for  the  clergy  to  preach  about  the  life  on  the 
other  side  of  death,  for  all  the  congregation  will  see  that 
it  exists ;  it  will  be  no  longer  necessary  to  talk  about  the 
results  in  that  life  of  what  we  are  doing  here,  for  the 
results  will  be  open  before  our  eyes,  as  they  are  open 
to  the  eyes  of  the  seers  of  to-day ;  there  will  be  no  need 
then  to  say  that  death  cannot  divide,  for  all  will  know 
that  their  beloved  are  with  them — ^tangible,  visible, 
audible. 

Now,  these  things  are  so  to  an  ever-increasing  num- 
ber of  our  own  race  at  the  present  time ;  they  will  become 
general  as  evolution  proceeds.  And  the  result  of  that 
will  be  that  very  many  of  the  secondary  teachings  of 
religion  will  become  palpably  true  to  the  great  majority; 


62  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

not  only  the  question  of  the  life  after  death  and  the 
conditions  that  rule  there,  but  also  the  value  of  many 
church  rites  and  ceremonies  that  the  sceptical  and  ma- 
terialistic mind  of  the  moment  looks  on  with  scorn  and 
contempt  as  ancient  superstitions.  There  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  sacramental  life;  there  is  a  bridge  between 
this  world  and  the  next  in  those  sacraments  of  the 
Churches  possessed  by  every  great  religion,  and  not  by 
the  Christian  alone.  Much  of  that  has  been  lost  to 
western  Christendom  by  the  Reformation,  which  re- 
jected the  occult  because  it  had  been  abused,  and  super- 
stition believed  without  understanding.  But,  none  the 
less,  in  the  great  sacraments  of  the  Church  there  re- 
mains a  potency  which  without  that  sacrament  you  can- 
not reach,  a  real  communication  of  the  spiritual  to  the 
material,  a  real  down-flowing  of  the  higher  life :  a  thing 
which  is  visible  to  the  eye  of  the  seer,  although  invisible 
to  the  normal  worshippers  in  the  churches.  And  gradu- 
ally, as  these  senses  become  common,  those  ancient 
traditions  will  again  be  justified  in  the  minds  of  all,  and 
men  will  again  know  that  in  those  divinely  given  offices 
of  religion  there  is  a  mighty  potency,  a  living  spiritual 
reality.  You  do  not  need  them  when  you  have  opened 
up  your  Spirit  to  the  higher  realities  of  the  spiritual 
world,  but  how  few  there  are  who  are  really  open  to 
these  in  their  daily  lives ;  the  sacraments  are  the  bridges 
that  unite  the  worlds,  and  it  is  foolish  to  throw  them 
aside  until  you  have  built  a  perpetual  bridge  within 
yourself. 

All  along  those  lines  you  will  readily  see  how  many 
doors  will  open  in  religion  where  knowledge  will  justify 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     63 

what  humility  and  faith  have  received.  And  along  those 
lines  religion,  without  ceasing  to  be  spiritual,  will  be 
rational  and  scientific  as  well,  and  you  will  realise  that 
Occult  Science  justifies  religion,  and  can  make  a  rational 
and  scientific  defence  for  many  of  its  rites  and  cere- 
monies, for  many  of  its  teachings  that  now  rest  on  au- 
thority and  tradition.  I  have  not  time  to  go  further 
along  that  line ;  I  have  indicated  to  you  the  ways  along 
which  the  doors  are  opening  both  in  the  spiritual  un- 
folding to  the  higher  realities,  and  the  unfolding  of  the 
higher  senses  which  will  gradually  bring  the  next  world 
within  man's  ken. 

II. — Science. 

Let  us  turn  to  Science,  and  see  how  far  similar  doors 
are  opening  there  for  the  science  of  our  day.  ,  You  may 
remember  that  I  pointed  out  to  you  that  science  was 
now  rather  at  its  wits'  end  as  regards  observation.  It 
seems  to  have  reached  the  limit  of  the  delicacy  of  its 
outer  apparatus.  How  shall  it  continue  to  observe? 
By  means  of  those  same  senses  that  I  have  been  speak- 
ing of  in  relation  to  the  verification  of  religious  teach- 
ings, but  in  science  you  can  begin  a  little  lower  down. 
In  the  physical  world  of  matter,  our  own  world,  science 
is  now  recognising  not  only  solid,  liquid,  gas,  but  also 
ether,  and  beyond  ether,  possible  finenesses  arising,  so 
that  there  may  be  many  ethers,  as  indeed  was  suggested 
in  that  famous  classification  of  vibrations  which  Sir 
William  Crookes  gave  in  one  of  his  addresses  a  few  years 
ago.  Let  it  stand  for  the  moment  as  a  matter  of  obser- 
vation of  higher  sight  that  there  are  more  ethers  than 


64  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

one  that  science  will  gradually  conquer.  But  science  is 
not  yet  able  to  see  even  the  chemical  atom,  and  that  is 
only  on  the  plane  of  the  gas,  the  third  fineness  of  matter. 
The  atom  escapes  by  its  subtlety,  by  its  minuteness,  and 
yet  it  would  not  be  a  very  difficult  thing  for  most  of  you 
to  develop  in  yourselves  the  power  of  seeing  as  far  as 
that,  for  it  is  only  physical  matter.  It  is  not  now  the 
seeing  of  another  kind  of  matter  altogether,  like  that  of 
the  astral  world ;  it  is  only  the  making  a  little  keener  of 
your  present  physical  sight.  Now  I  wonder  how  many 
of  you,  if  you  were  on  board  ship,  quiet,  with  the  air 
very  pure,  if  you  looked  into  the  atmosphere  around  you, 
would  see  dancing  in  that  atmosphere  a  number  of  tiny 
brilliant  sparks.  Probably  a  large  number  of  you.  Try 
it  next  time  you  happen  to  be  out  on  the  sea.  Sit  with 
your  back  to  the  sun,  otherwise  your  eyes  will  become 
dazzled ;  fix  your  gaze  at  the  distance  at  which  you  can 
see  an  obj  ect  clearly,  so  as  not  to  strain  the  eyes ;  focus 
your  eyes,  say  at  a  distance  of  four  or  five  yards  away, 
not  near  enough  to  cause  any  strain  by  the  crossing  of 
the  eyes ;  you  must  not  cross  the  axes  of  the  eyes,  that 
is,  you  must  not  squint;  that,  prolonged,  will  injure  the 
eyes.  Let  them  look  quite  easily  out  a  few  yards  away 
from  you  into  the  empty  air,  and  stay  quite  quietly  look- 
ing at  that  point.  Probably  most  of  you  presently  would 
begin  to  see  a  number  of  brilliant  little  sparks  dancing 
like  motes  in  a  sunbeam.  One  word  of  warning  I  must 
give  you :  if,  in  fixing  your  attention  on  one  of  those, 
it  slowly  glides  away  out  of  sight,  round  the  corner  as 
it  were,  then  it  is  only  something  in  the  retina,  and 
the  humour  of  the  eyes  carries  that  gradually  away; 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     65 

anything  that  gradually  slides  out  of  sight  belongs  to  the 
physical  retina  of  the  eye,  and  is  not  outside  yourself. 
But  if  they  dance  up  and  down  in  every  direction,  ex- 
actly as  the  dust  in  a  ray  of  light  coming  through  a  shut- 
ter, then  you  may  be  sure  that  you  are  seeing  something 
in  the  air  beyond  your  ordinary  vision.  Look  at  them 
easily,  not  straining  your  vision,  but  with  the  will  to 
see — every  organ  of  sense  is  evolved  by  the  will  of  the 
Spirit  behind  it — the  will  to  see  more  plainly,  and  gradu- 
ally you  will  find  that  those  dancing  sparks  of  light  can 
be  stopped  by  your  will  to  look  at  them,  until  they  will, 
as  it  were,  hang  in  the  air  like  minute  sparks  without  the 
rapid  motion.  You  have  begun  then  to  develop  etheric 
sight,  and  going  on  steadily  along  similar  lines  you  would 
find  that  before  very  long  the  atom  of  the  chemist  would 
become  visible  to  you.  Of  course,  this  is  possible  to  any 
clairvoyant  who  possesses  real  clairvoyance,  and  not 
only  a  dim  response  to  vibrations  outside  that  are  not 
understood.  Two  years  ago,  under  favourable  condi- 
tions, two  of  us  who  had  developed  some  of  these  higher 
kinds  of  sight  set  to  work  on  the  atoms  of  the  chemist. 
We  examined  some  fifty-five  or  fifty-six  of  them,  drew 
the  forms,  and  since  then  have  examined  all  the  rest  that 
are  known  to  science.  Those  forms  fall  into  classes ;  they 
can  be  drawn  so  that  anyone  who  is  now  able  to  see 
them  can  test  his  own  vision  if  he  pleases  by  that  which 
we  have  put  on  record ;  and  you  will  find  in  that  work, 
which  we  published  under  the  name  of  Occult  Chemistry, 
pictures  of  the  chemical  elements,  observations  as  to 
their  breakings  up  into  finer  and  finer  forms  of  ether,  and 
possibly  to  the  trained  chemist  suggestions  of  experi- 

5 


66  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

ments  by  which  he  may  guide  his  own  investigations,  and 
by  utiHsing  what  we  have  seen  as  scientific  hypotheses 
to  him,  although  facts  to  us,  may  be  able  to  follow  these 
subtle  and  elusive  particles  of  matter  further  than  he  has 
been  able  to  follow  them  by  any  instrument  that  he  is 
able  to  manufacture.  For  when  a  thing  is  once  done,  it 
is  possible  then  to  verify  it  over  and  over  again;  when 
once  the  pictures  have  been  made,  it  is  easy  for  others  to 
see  them  and  verify  their  details;  and  along  that  line 
opens  up  a  whole  vast  series  of  new  observations  by  man 
developing  within  himself  instruments  of  observation 
keener  than  those  he  possesses  by  his  apparatus  and  his 
machinery.  Along  that  line  physical  research  may  go. 
As  these  senses  become  commoner  and  commoner,  in- 
vestigations may  be  carried  on  by  scientists  into  the  sub- 
tler worlds  on  whose  thresholds  they  now  are  stand- 
ing, until  we  shall  be  able  to  have  a  chemistry  founded 
on  direct  observation  which  shall  carry  us  right  up  to  the 
ultimate  atom  of  the  physical  plane,  and  make  practicable 
those  so-called  dreams  of  the  Alchemist,  which  are  only 
practicable  by  bringing  together  atoms  of  a  finer  kind 
than  the  gaseous,  and  so  leading  to  aggregations  that 
make  the  elements  along  the  lines  that  the  chemist  de- 
sires, he  doing  in  his  laboratory  what  nature  has  done 
outside.  And  so  along  that  line  to  chemistry,  to  elec- 
tricity, new  powers  of  observation  will  extend  the  bounds 
of  science. 

And  in  medicine  the  same  is  true.  Now  medicine  is 
to  some  extent,  especially  on  the  Continent,  profiting  by 
this  clear  seeing.  It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  in  a 
Paris  hospital  for  the  doctors  to  look  for  someone  who 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     (yj 

is  sensitive,  to  hypnotise  that  sensitive  person,  to  half 
awaken  him,  so  that  he  is  what  is  called  "lucid"  or 
"clairvoyant,"  to  take  him  then  to  the  bedside  of  the 
patient  and  get  him  to  describe  the  inner  condition  of 
the  organs  of  that  patient.  Diagnoses  are  being  made  in 
that  way  now  in  several  of  the  Paris  hospitals,  enor- 
mously facilitating  the  work  of  the  physician,  and  even 
of  the  surgeon.  It  is  only  seeing  by  what  you  call  the 
Rontgen  rays.  The  human  eye  can  develop  the  power 
to  see  by  those  rays,  and  then  you  don't  want  your  screens 
and  all  the  rest  of  your  apparatus,  for  direct  vision  will 
do  what  is  now  done  imperfectly  by  apparatus.  Once, 
in  speaking  about  this,  I  pointed  out  that  all  that  the 
doctors  had  done  was  to  give  a  new  label  to  a  power  that 
had  been  recognised  by  many  right  back  in  the  last  cen- 
tury. They  don't  call  it  clairvoyance — I  use  that  word 
— they  call  it  internal  autoscopy.  After  all,  a  rose  by 
any  other  name  smells  as  sweet.  Clairvoyance  is  just 
as  useful  when  it  is  described  in  seven  syllables  as  when- 
it  is  described  in  three — ^the  power  is  the  same ;  and  that 
is  now  being  used,  as  I  say,  for  medical  purposes.  As 
that  extends,  as  the  action  of  drugs  can  be  watched, 
as  the  physician  can  see  what  he  is  doing  instead  of 
groping,  then  medicine  will  become  what  it  ought  to 
he — a  science  of  healing;  and  instead  of  the  miserable 
practice  of  vivisection  you  will  have  the  clairvoyant 
vision,  which  directs  alike  the  scalpel  of  the  surgeon  or 
the  prescriptions  of  the  physician. 

But  that  is  not  the  only  door  which  is  opening  before 
medical  science.  Doctors  are  beginning  to  realise  the 
enormous  value  of  the  power  of  mind  in  the  treatment 


68  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

of  disease.  Along  this  line  the  way  has  been  led  as 
usual  by  the  great  hosts  of  people  who  are  banned  as 
charlatans  by  modem  science  —  Christian  Scientists, 
Mental  Scientists,  faith  curers  of  all  sorts.  These  are 
the  things  that  are  leading  the  medical  profession  slowly 
along  sounder  lines  of  cure,  along  safer  methods  of 
healing.  Most  doctors  will  now  admit  that  to  get  the 
mind  of  the  patient  with  them  is  to  double  the  value  of 
their  drugs ;  most  doctors  will  admit  that  the  use  of  the 
imagination  by  the  patient  is  an  immense  help  in  the 
curing  of  any  disease.  On  every  side  you  may  see  that 
these  methods  are  being  taken  up  by  medical  men,  and 
are  being  rendered  more  and  more  scientific.  What  is 
the  law  that  underlies  them  all  ?  That  the  mind  creates ; 
that  the  mind  is  the  one  great  creative  power  in  the  uni- 
verse, divine  in  the  universe,  human  in  man ;  that  as  the 
mind  can  create,  so  can  it  restore;  that  where  there  is 
injury,  the  mind  can  turn  its  forces  to  the  healing  of  the 
injury;  that  where  harm  has  happened  to  the  body,  the 
mind  can  bring  a  remedy  and  strengthen  the  action  of  the 
drugs  that  are  given  by  the  physician.  And  I  see  now 
that  in  the  Anglican  Church  there  are  several  guilds  of 
healing  by  the  action  of  prayer — which  is  concentrated 
thought — ^by  the  touch  of  consecrated  oil^ — which  is  a 
sacramental  function — and  by  the  faith  of  the  patient, 
which  is  the  determination  of  the  mind  to  work  in  the 
direction  which  is  desired  by  the  sufferer.  Now  there 
is  nothing  new  in  that,  nothing  that  has  not  been  known 
in  the  world  for  thousands  of  years.  It  was  pushed  out 
of  sight  by  a  science  that  depended  only  on  material 
means;  it  is  coming  back  with  the  supremacy  of  mind 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     69 

over  matter,  and  with  the  recojgnition  which  science  is 
now  making,  that  it  is  life  which  is  the  evolver  and  the 
moulder  of  matter.  As  medicine  goes  along  that  line 
instead  of  along  the  lines  of  torture,  the  doctor  will 
again  become  the  healer  instead  of  the  poisoner  that 
he  too  often  is  to-day. 

In  psychology  the  same  is  true ;  new  doors  are  open- 
ing there.  These  higher  bodies  of  man  that  I  spoke  of  at 
the  beginning,  as  they  become  organised,  bring  us  into 
touch  with  one  region  after  another  of  the  universe 
around  us,  answer  to  vibrations  from  the  outer  world 
far  away  from  our  physical  globe,  bring  us  into  contact 
with  the  subtler  regions,  the  regions  of  thought  as  well 
as  the  regions  of  Spirit.  As  our  consciousness  makes 
its  vehicles  more  plastic,  more  useful,  more  keen,  more 
subtle,  we  shall  find  the  consciousness  far  larger  than 
we  dreamed  of,  until  at  last  we  shall  realise  that  this 
human  consciousness  of  ours  is  only  like  a  vast  body 
touching  delicately,  as  it  were,  the  surface  of  the  phys- 
ical matter  of  the  globe,  putting  a  little  more  of  itself 
down  into  the  physical  brain  that  is  more  sensitive,  but 
ever  transcending  the  physical,  and  using  the  higher, 
finer  matter  for  its  keener  instrument,  until  at  last  we 
shall  realise  that  genius  of  every  kind  is  only  the  manifes- 
tation of  a  larger  consciousness  that  each  of  us  possesses, 
only  we  are  not  able  to  make  it  work  through  the  denser 
matter  of  our  brain.  And  we  shall  realise  that  all  that  the 
Prophets  have  said,  all  that  the  great  Mystics  have  told 
us,  all  those  things  are  only  the  fruits  of  a  wider  con- 
sciousness contacting  a  wider  world,  and  that  before  psy- 
chology is  unfolding  an  enormous  range  of  possibilities, 


70  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

in  which  man  will  be  in  touch  with  other  worlds  than 
this,  and  in  which  he  will  climb  higher  and  higher,  until 
he  realises  that  he  is  cosmic,  not  planetary,  and  belongs 
to  a  vaster  system,  and  not  only  to  one  tiny  world.  Along 
those  lines,  and  along  many  another,  then,  the  finer 
sense  is  opening  to  science  new  doors,  new  avenues  of 
knowledge. 

III.— Art. 

Knd  what  of  Art?  Here,  again,  these  senses  will  be 
the  builders  of  the  new  art,  the  givers  of  the  new  ideals ; 
and  there  are  already  signs,  in  the  world  of  painters 
more  especially,  of  new  powers  which  are  opening,  new 
splendour  of  colour,  and  new  wedding  of  emotion  to 
colour  also.  A  new  school  of  painters  is  beginning  to 
grow  up,  some  in  this  country,  one  at  least  in  Belgium, 
several  in  Hungary.  I  was  looking  at  their  paintings 
only  three  or  four  days  ago,  in  which  new  use  of  colour 
is  being  shown  to  indicate  the  higher  emotions  of  the 
mind,  in  which  the  painter  is  throwing  into  forms  of 
new  beauty,  glorious  in  new  brilliancy  of  colour,  the 
higher  thoughts  and  emotions  which  show  themselves  es- 
pecially in  religious  feelings.  There  was  one  painting 
that  was  hanging  in  the  hall  in  which  we  were  holding  our 
International  Congress,  which  from  the  further  end  of 
the  hall  seemed  as  though  it  were  impossible  as  a  mere 
painting  on  opaque  canvas.  As  you  looked  at  it  from  a 
distance  it  seemed  as  though  the  colour  were  trans- 
parent, as  though  the  canvas  were  transparent,  as  though 
there  were  a  light  beyond  the  painting  shining  through 
the  colours  from  behind.     Now,  there  is  something  of 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     7 1 

that  quality  in  the  paintings  of  Mr.  Mortimer  Menpes 
which  he  did  in  Japan.  It  shows  so  strongly  that  I 
remember,  in  one  exhibition  of  his  paintings,  that  people 
looking  would  hardly  believe  that  a  light  had  not  been 
hidden  behind  the  painting,  so  extraordinary  was  the 
brilliance  that  seemed  to  shine  through ;  but  if  you  talked 
to  that  great  colourist,  you  would  find  that  he  sees 
colours  in  quite  a  different  way  from  you,  or  at  least  I 
will  say  I  found  he  saw  them  in  quite  a  different  way 
from  my  normal  sight,  and  in  talking  to  him  about  the  col- 
ours that  he  saw,  I  was  able  to  recognise,  having  unfolded 
some  of  the  higher  vision,  that  he  was  seeing  astral 
colours,  and  not  physical,  and  that  the  effort  to  throw 
those  upon  the  canvas  brought  about  the  remarkable 
results  which  everyone  wondered  over,  though  they  did 
not  understand.  Now  there  are  many  artists  who  are 
growing  up  along  that  line,  who  are  groping  after  new 
possibilities  of  colour  as  well  as  after  new  ideals  which 
they  seek  to  limn,  and  you  will  find  in  the  more  modem 
paintings  of  that  school,  at  present  so  small  but  with  the 
promise  of  the  future  in  it,  that  they  are  seeking  after 
new  forms  of  beauty ;  that  they  are  trying  to  translate 
some  of  the  higher  visions  that  belong  to  worlds  of  mat- 
ter subtler  and  finer  than  our  own ;  that  they  are  begin- 
ning to  draw  down  from  the  ideal  great  thoughts,  which 
they  are  putting  at  present  imperfectly  into  form  and 
colour,  but  in  which  is  the  promise  of  the  Art  of  the 
Future,  where  larger  worlds  shall  be  drawn  upon,  where 
a  vaster  Nature  shall  unfold  herself  to  man,  where  new 
colours  and  new  possibilities  of  outline  shall  be  found  in 
every  direction,  and  where  human  genius  shall  have  a 


^72  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

wider  range,  because  a  wider  world  and  wider  powers 
will  come  within  the  power  of  the  painter. 

And  so  we  shall  see  it  also  in  music.  That  is  begin- 
ning to  show  signs  of  the  coming  art — subtler  harmonies, 
minuter  distances  between  notes,  tendencies  to  quarter- 
notes  as  well  as  half-notes,  quarter-tones;  and  already 
there  are  one  or  two  musicians  who  are  beginning  in  their 
melodies  to  play  with  these  subtler  kinds  of  tones,  mak- 
ing strange  new  music — ^music  which  the  public  ear  is 
not  yet  accustomed  to,  which  it  challenges  when  it  hears 
it,  but  which  is  the  Music  of  the  Future,  when  a  vaster 
range  of  sound  shall  appeal  to  ears  more  finely  organised 
than  ours,  and  when  the  ears  of  a  new  race  shall  demand 
from  its  musicians  greater  delicacies  of  musical  sound 
than  have  yet  been  mastered  amongst  us;  and  there  is 
a  new  possibility  there.  That  has  been  seized  in  India, 
although  little  put  at  present  into  music  that  the  West 
would  love.  If  you  go  to  India  you  will  find  some 
strange  rules  of  music  there:  there  is  music  for  the 
sunrising,  and  music  for  the  high  noon,  and  music  for 
the  evening  hours,  and  music  for  the  stillness  of  the 
night.  Nature  has  her  sounds  in  all  the  different  times 
of  her  unfolding,  from  dawn  to  sunset,  and  sunset  to 
dawn,  and  these  finer  notes  are  attuned  to  these  mys- 
teries of  Nature,  so  that  unheard  melodies  may  be  mir- 
rored in  the  music  of  human  instruments.  The  Indian 
musician  would  not  play  to  you  a  melody  of  the  dawn 
when  the  sun  was  setting;  he  would  say  it  was  against 
religion  to  do  it,  for  to  him  all  things  are  religious. 
It  is  a  subtler  harmony  between  man  and  Na- 
ture; and  not  without  significance,  again,  was  it  that. 


OF  -'-1^ 

UNIVERS: 

OF 


THE  NEW  DOORS  OPENING  IN  RELIGION,  SCIENCE,  ART     73 

at  the  Congress  I  have  just  spoken  of,  a  Russian  lady 
teacher — for  the  Russian  is  very  sensitive,  a  young  na- 
tion with  possibilities  of  the  future  in  it — brought  to  us 
what  she  called  "coloured  sounds."  She  had  learned  to 
translate  into  musical  sounds  the  colours  of  the  sunset 
and  the  colours  of  a  forest,  so  that  in  music  she  could 
play  sounds  that  made  arise  in  the  mind  the  same  emo- 
tions as  would  be  aroused  in  the  mind  that  looked  at 
the  glory  of  the  clouds  in  the  sunset,  or  that  sat  in  the 
wood  and  saw  the  delicate  shadings  of  the  trees;  the 
same  emotions  in  the  one  case  seen  in  Nature,  in  the 
other  heard  in  music,  and  both  changeable  the  one  into 
the  other,  eye  and  ear,  and  ear  and  eye.  Along  those 
lines  many  new  possibilities  lie — new  melodies,  new 
delicacies,  new  exquisite  harmonies  in  sound. 

So  art  will  go  forward  here,  with  these  keener,  subtler 
organs,  further  even  in  one  way  than  science  along  the 
line  of  observation,  for  art  reaches  out  by  emotion  where 
science  is  only  observing,  and  so  the  poet  is  very  easily 
the  prophet,  and  the  artist  very  easily  the  seer;  and  as 
these  powers  increase  and  multiply,  a  new  race  arises 
in  which  the  powers  are  inborn.  Can  you  not  dream 
some  of  the  new  possibilities  in  Religion,  in  Science,  and 
in  Art? 

You  think  it  is  all  a  dream,  all  a  fancy !  But  to  say 
that,  you  must  be  making  the  preposterous  claim  that 
evolution  is  over,  and  that  you  are  the  highest  products 
which  Nature  is  able  to  bring  to  birth.  We  are  far 
higher  than  the  savages:  should  there  not  be  races 
higher  than  we  are  ?  Surely  Nature's  power  is  not  ex- 
hausted; surely  she,  who  has  gradually  builded  up  the 


74  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

exquisite  mechanism  of  the  human  retina  from  the  pig- 
ment spot  in  the  nervous  ring  of  the  medusa,  surely  she 
can  evolve  these  eyes  further  and  further,  to  greater 
power  of  sight.  It  all  grows  out  of  the  Spirit,  and  of  the 
Spirit  there  is  no  ending.  If  you  see  to-day  with  your 
eye  it  is  because  the  Spirit  in  you  willed  to  see,  and  by 
that  will  built  up  the  organ  which  made  the  will  effective 
in  the  material  world ;  and  that  same  Spirit  that  evolved 
you  in  the  past  is  living  in  you  now,  and  is  your  inner- 
most Self ;  its  powers  are  not  exhausted,  its  inspiration 
is  not  over,  it  is  still  the  architect  of  the  human  body,  as 
the  divine  Spirit  is  the  architect  of  the  universe.  Ever 
to  higher  and  higher  forms  of  matter,  ever  to  loftier  and 
loftier  stages  of  consciousness,  everlastingness  stretches 
in  front  of  us,  as  everlastingness  stretches  behind  us.  As 
we  have  climbed,  so  we  shall  climb;  as  we  have  come 
upwards  from  the  dust,  so  shall  we  ascend  to  the  stars ; 
for  the  Spirit  of  God  within  us  knows  no  limitation 
either  in  time  or  space,  and  the  evolution  of  the  future 
should  be  a  millionfold  more  splendid  than  the  evolu- 
tion which  has  made  us  what  we  are. 


Lecture  IV 

Brotherhood  Applied   to  Social 
Conditions 


Friends:  I  wish  to  deal  to-night  with  the  question  of 
the  principle  of  Brotherhood  as  applied  to  human  life; 
how  we  may  use  it  to  solve  some  of  the  problems  that 
we  find  around  us  at  the  present  day,  how  we  may  use 
it  to  make  possible  the  transition  from  one  stage  of 
civilisation  to  another,  so  that  the  transition  may  come 
in  peace  and  goodwill,  and  thereby  may  last,  rather  than 
in  anger  and  revolution,  which  can  only  mean  a  brief 
period  of  the  new  order,  and  then  another  struggle, 
prolonged  ill-will,  and  misery.  But  if  Brotherhood  is 
to  be  applied  to  the  solution  of  our  difficulties,  the  first 
thing  that  is  necessary  is  to  try  to  understand  what  is 
meant  by  Brotherhood,  and  what  it  implies.  Now, 
Brotherhood  by  no  means  implies  what  is  called  equality, 
for  just  as  you  do  find  Brotherhood  in  nature,  so  do  you 
not  find  equality;  in  fact,  the  very  name  Brotherhood 
carries  our  thoughts  to  the  constitution  of  the  family, 
implies  at  once  the  inequality  of  elder  and  younger,  of 
wiser  and  more  ignorant,  of  those  who  guide  and  those 
who  obey;  so  that  if  man  is  to  aim  at  a  society  in  which 
equality  is  to  be  the  watchword,  then  the  principle  of 

75 


*j6  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

Brotherhood  must  be  entirely  thrown  on  one  side.  The 
disadvantage  of  taking  the  war-cry  of  equaHty  in  trying 
to  make  a  social  system,  or  even  to  fight  a  social  battle, 
is  that  natural  law  is  against  you,  and  that  you  are  deal- 
ing with  a  fiction,  not  with  a  fact.  There  is  nothing 
more  obvious  throughout  the  whole  realm  of  nature 
than  the  inequalities  of  which  natural  order  consists; 
and  if  you  turn  aside  from  the  vaster  order  of  the  vari- 
ous grades  of  living  things,  and  confine  yourselves  only 
to  the  study  of  man,  there  the  same  principle  of  in- 
equality is  perpetually  asserting  itself.  It  is  not  only  the 
difference  of  age  which  always  comes  in,  in  the  question 
of  a  family;  it  is  the  difference  of  capacity,  of  power, 
of  characteristics,  of  qualifications.  What  sort  of  equal- 
ity is  possible  between  the  strong  and  healthy  man  and 
the  cripple  or  the  invalid  ?  what  sort  of  equality  between 
the  man  with  eyes  and  the  blind  ?  between  the  man  who 
is  dowered  with  genius  and  the  man  who  is  weighted  by 
dulness  and  stupidity  ?  Inequality  is  the  law  of  nature, 
not  equality ;  and  it  is  of  no  use  to  try  to  build  a  social 
system  on  that  which  is  only  a  fiction,  thought  out  in 
the  study  of  doctrinaires,  but  breaking  down  the  very 
moment  it  comes  to  be  applied  to  human  life.  That 
famous  declaration  of  the  American  Republic :  "Man  is 
born  free,"  and  on  that  freedom  basing  equality,  is 
denied  by  every  fact  of  human  life.  Man  is  born  a  babe, 
helpless  and  dependent ;  and  if  the  babe  were  left  to  the 
enjoyment  of  freedom,  he  would  have  very  little  chance 
of  growing  into  youth  and  maturity.  A  babe  is  not  born 
free,  but  dependent  on  all  those  around  him  for  the 
possible  continuance  of  his  life ;  and  if  it  were  not  that 


BROTHERHOOD  APPLIED  TO  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS        'J J 

he  is  born  into  a  system  of  affection  and  obligation,  there 
would  be  no  chance  for  the  human  babe  to  survive  the 
first  hours  of  his  infancy. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  one  full  of  significance,  that 
the  two  societies  in  the  world  which  recognise  Universal 
Brotherhood  both  also  recognise  a  hierarchical  order. 
Take  the  great  fraternity  of  Masons.  They  lay  down 
the  principle  of  Universal  Brotherhood  over  the  whole 
surface  of  the  globe,  but  there  is  nothing  more  rigid  in 
its  order  and  in  the  authority  committed  to  the  officers 
than  a  Masonic  Lodge.  Hierarchy  is  there  recognised 
as  the  very  condition  of  liberty.  If  you  turn  from  that 
proclamation  of  Universal  Brotherhood  to  the  Theo- 
sophical  Society,  exactly  the  same  thing  is  seen.  You 
have  there  the  recognition  of  a  hierarchy  that  guides  the 
destinies  of  humanity,  and  presides  over  the  evolving 
growth  of  man — a  mighty  hierarchy,  where  wisdom  only 
gives  the  right  to  rule,  and  where  the  commands  of 
wisdom  are  gladly  carried  out  by  the  less  wise,  who  rec- 
ognise the  authority  of  those  wiser  than  themselves. 
And  that,  in  truth,  is  the  condition  of  liberty.  For  with- 
out that  hierarchical  order,  where  wisdom  rules  and 
ignorance  obeys,  there  is  no  possibility  of  anything  that 
is  worthy  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  liberty.  As  I  shall 
want  to  put  to  you  at  the  close  of  what  I  have  to  say 
to-night,  we  have  never  yet  seen  liberty  upon  earth  out- 
side the  ranks  of  that  great  human  hierarchy ;  we  have 
only  seen  the  rule  of  different  classes,  the  rule  of  one 
group  over  another ;  but  never  have  we  seen  liberty,  for 
man  is  not  yet  sufficiently  evolved  to  understand  the  con- 
ditions under  which  alone  liberty  can  exist. 


78  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

In  looking  at  this  strange  fact,  that  the  only  two  soci- 
eties that  proclaim  Universal  Brotherhood  also  admit 
a  hierarchical  order,  let  us  see  how  far  in  the  great 
Brotherhood  of  man  there  are  any  foundations  on  which 
a  hierarchy  can  be  based.  I  am  coming,  now,  away  from 
that  great  occult  hierarchy  of  which  I  spoke  into  the 
ordinary  humanity  known  to  us  all.  In  the  family, 
where  the  principle  of  Brotherhood  is  recognised,  and 
where  duty  and  responsibility  go  with  age  and  knowl- 
edge, there  we  have,  as  it  were,  a  rough  outline  as  to 
what  a  State  should  be.  But  how  does  the  principle  of 
age  come  in  as  regards  mankind?  For  unless  there  be 
something  in  the  human  race  which  bears  an  analogy,  at 
least,  to  the  principle  of  age  within  a  family,  we  shall 
find  it  difficult  to  vindicate  Brotherhood,  much  less  to 
make  it  the  foundation-stone  of  society  in  the  centuries 
to  come.  Now,  it  is  as  true  of  humanity  as  it  is  true  of 
the  members  of  a  family  that  there  is  a  difference  of  age. 
Exactly  on  the  same  lines  by  which  the  members  of  a 
family  are  born  one  after  the  other,  and  in  all  those 
different  ages  make  up  the  family  circle,  so  is  it  with  the 
great  family  of  man.  The  human  and  intelligent  Spirits 
that  make  up  that  vast  family  are  not  of  the  same  age, 
have  not  all  been  born  into  individual  existence  at  the 
same  time.  Side  by  side  with  the  idea  of  Brotherhood 
comes  out  the  natural  law  of  reincarnation — ^that  there  is 
a  difference  of  age  in  the  individualised  human  Spirits, 
and  that  there  are  elders  and  youngers  in  the  great  hu- 
man family.  These  differences  of  age  do  not  go  neces- 
sarily with  any  of  the  distinctions  of  castes  or  classes  that 
you  find  in  modern  society,  although  the  great  caste  sys- 


BROTHERHOOD  APPLIED  TO  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS        79 

tern  of  India  was  founded  upon  this  principle  of  the  dif- 
ferent ages  of  the  reincarnating  Egos.  Long  ago,  how- 
ever, has  that  passed  away,  and  you  have  not  now  mani- 
fest on  earth  that  same  definite  order  as  in  the  earHer 
days  of  our  Aryan  ancestors  in  India.  Still,  you  can  tell 
the  younger  or  the  older  soul  by  examining  the  character- 
istics that  the  man  or  the  woman  brings  into  the  world  at 
birth ;  by  looking  at  the  character,  the  marks  of  the  being 
older  or  younger  leap  into  sight.  The  younger  soul,  un- 
able to  acquire  any  large  amount  of  knowledge,  with  very 
little  moral  faculty  showing  itself,  very  selfish  and  desir- 
ous to  grasp  the  pleasure  of  the  moment  without  any  care 
for  what  may  be  the  result  of  grasping  it  in  the  time  that 
follows,  the  trivial,  shallow,  easy-going  way  of  life,  the 
being  carried  away  by  the  ever-changing  fancy,  and  with 
no  strong  underlying  thought  or  principle  or  will  on 
which  you  can  reckon,  very  changeable,  very  frivolous, 
easily  carried  away  by  every  passing  whim  of  the  mo- 
ment— ^those  are  marked  out  as  the  younger  souls,  who 
have  little  experience  of  life  behind  them  in  which  char- 
acter has  been  builded,  in  which  will  has  been  evolved. 
And  when  you  come  across  those  of  calm  judgment,  great 
capacity  for  acquiring  knowledge,  power  to  turn  knowl- 
edge into  wisdom,  steadfast  in  will,  steadfast  in  principle 
ready  to  look  to  the  future  beyond  the  passing  attractions 
of  the  moment,  ready  to  sacrifice  a  temporary  gain  for  a 
larger  happiness — in  such  men  and  women  you  have  the 
marks  of  the  older  souls,  whose  past  experiences  have 
gradually  developed  capacities,  and  who  have  brought 
with  them  into  the  world  the  fruits  of  long-reaped  har- 
vests.   That  great  principle  of  Reincarnation  must  ever 


80  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

go  hand  in  hand  with  Brotherhood  if  Brotherhood  is  to 
be  applied,  if  it  is  to  be  made  a  working  principle  of  ordi- 
nary life.  For  it  is  out  of  these  differences  of  age  be- 
tween us  that  grow  up  all  the  possibilities  of  an  ordered 
and  happy  society  amongst  ourselves.  When  the  young 
souls  come  into  places  of  power  and  wealth,  then  ill  is  it 
for  the  nation,  for  then  children  rule  instead  of  men. 
But  well  is  it  for  a  people  where  wisdom  is  the  test  of 
weight  and  authority,  where  the  wise  and  the  thoughtful 
and  the  learned  are  those  who  are  held  to  have  the  great- 
est claim  to  social  distinction,  where  knowledge  and 
power  go  hand  in  hand,  and  where  experience  is  the 
guide  of  righteousness,  the  standard  of  honour.  Only  as 
those  facts  are  recognised — and  they  grow  out  of  the 
knowledge  of  reincarnation — only  on  that  stable  law  in 
nature  can  you  build  securely  and  strongly  the  society 
that  shall  endure. 

But  it  is  sometimes  said :  If  you  are  going  to  build  a 
society  on  these  great  principles,  then  you  have  to  change 
human  nature,  because  human  nature  is  selfish,  super- 
ficial, readily  swayed,  and  you  cannot  build  a  society 
which  is  truly  great  out  of  trivial  and  superficial  people. 
The  wise  are  always  in  the  minority ;  how,  then,  will  you 
gain  for  them  the  right  and  the  power  to  rule?  It  is 
true  that  human  nature  will  have  to  change  very  much 
from  what  it  is  to-day,  but  then  it  is  changing  all  the 
time — it  is  no  new  thing  to  change  human  nature.  Hu- 
man nature  is  perpetually  changing  as  century  succeeds 
century  and  civilisation  succeeds  civilisation;  and  when 
we  once  understand  the  law  of  life,  and  realise  the 
mighty  power  of  thought  in  the  building  of  character, 


BROTHERHOOD  APPLIED  TO  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS        8l 

and  understand  that  law  of  inviolable  sequence  which 
Theosophists  call  karma,  working  in  every  department 
of  human  life  and  not  only  in  non-intelligent  nature, 
when  we  realise  the  time  that  reincarnation  gives  us, 
and  the  certainty  that  that  law  of  inviolable  sequence 
gives  us,  then  we  begin  to  understand  that  human  nature 
is  a  very  malleable  thing;  and  just  in  proportion  as  we 
understand  the  law,  so  shall  be  the  rapidity  of  the  chang- 
ing. Do  you  think  that  human  thought  is  weak  as  a 
force  to  change  human  nature  ?  Is  it  not  rather  true  that 
thought  is  the  power  which  brings  about  all  mighty 
changes? — first  the  ideal,  then  the  action.  Let  me  give 
you  two  striking  examples  of  the  only  two  nations  in 
Europe  that  have  attained  national  unity  during  our 
own  lifetime ;  one  Italy,  the  other  Germany.  I  only  take 
them  as  examples  of  nations  that  out  of  many  States  and 
warring  interests  have  reached  unity  as  a  nation;  and 
how  was  it  done?  It  was  done  by  the  holding  up  of  the 
ideal  in  both  cases,  the  ideal  of  national  unity.  Not 
until  German  poets  had  sung  of  the  German  Fatherland 
for  many  and  many  a  long  year,  not  until  that  ideal  of 
the  Fatherland  rose  strongly  and  clearly  in  the  minds  of 
the  young,  not  until  the  poet  had  made  the  ideal  was  it 
possible  for  the  soldier  to  come  forward  with  the  states- 
man and  build  those  States  into  one.  And  so  also  with 
Italy.  Long  before  there  was  any  talk  of  revolution  or 
war,  long  before  there  was  any  idea  of  appealing  to 
the  sword,  Italian  thinkers  had  spoken  of  Italian  unity, 
Italian  patriots  had  held  up  the  ideal  of  a  united  Italy ; 
and  it  was  only  when  the  ideal  had  fired  the  hearts  of 
the  young  that  there  was  strength  enough  for  the  self- 

6 


82  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

sacrifice  that  followed  the  sword  of  Garibaldi,  and  made 
it  possible  for  Italy  to  become  a  united  people.  For  it 
is  out  of  the  ideal  that  enthusiasm  grows,  out  of  the  ideal 
and  the  longing  to  realise  it  that  the  power  of  self-sacri- 
fice is  generated.  What  we  need  to  do,  then,  to  change 
human  nature,  is  to  hold  up  great  ideals  before  the 
young  of  our  time,  and  those  ideals  shall  fire  their  hearts 
to  passionate  enthusiasm,  until  self-sacrifice  shall  be  a 
joy  and  not  a  sacrifice  at  all,  in  order  that  the  ideal  they 
worship  may  become  realised  upon  earth.  Along  those 
lines  human  nature  will  change;  for,  never  forget  that 
Human  Nature  is  divine,  not  devilish ;  that  a  God  is  at 
the  heart  of  every  man,  unfolding  the  power  of  divinity ; 
hence  the  power  of  the  ideal  to  fire  and  the  power  of 
thought  to  mould  the  lines  of  character. 

Let  us  pass  on  from  principles  to  practice,  and  see 
which  of  the  social  problems  shows  good  hope  of  resolu- 
tion by  applying  this  principle  of  Brotherhood,  with  its 
corrollaries  of  reincarnation  and  karma.  Evidently  our 
first  tool  is  education.  In  the  plastic  bodies  and  brains 
of  the  young  there  lies  the  greatest  possibility  of  a 
speedy  upbuilding  of  a  noble  social  feeling.  As  I  pointed 
out  in  the  first  of  this  course  of  lectures,  the  attempt  that 
is  being  made  in  many  directions  now  to  separate  re- 
ligion and  morals,  and  to  give  an  education  from  which 
religion  shall  be  excluded — that,  for  the  reasons  which 
I  then  gave  you,  and  need  not  repeat,  is  foredoomed  to 
failure.  Now,  it  is  quite  clear  why  politicians  and  the 
public,  impatient  of  the  quarrels  of  many  sectarians  and 
denominations,  want  to  throw  religion  aside  alto- 
gether, and  not  bring  religious  controversies  into  the 


BROTHERHOOD  APPLIED  TO  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS        83 

schools.  But  if  you  apply  the  principle  of  Brotherhood 
to  religion,  it  surely  is  not  too  much  to  hope  that  in  a 
country  where  the  vast  majority  are  at  least  nominally 
Christian,  some  sort  of  agreement  might  be  come  to  on 
essentials  for  the  teaching  of  the  young.  In  India  you 
have  sectarian  religions  as  you  have  here,  great  divisions 
in  the  schools  of  religious  thought ;  and  it  was  said  some 
dozen  years  ago  in  India,  quite  as  strongly  as  you  hear 
it  said  now  in  England:  It  is  impossible  to  teach  re- 
ligion to  Indian  boys  and  girls,  for  the  strife  of  sects 
makes  unity  impossible,  and  how  should  you  teach  the 
children  without  deciding  on  what  to  teach  them  ?  That 
seemed,  as  it  seems  over  here,  a  great  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  religious  teaching,  and  yet  in  four  or  five  years 
that  question  was  solved  in  India  so  far  as  concerns 
Hinduism,  the  religion  of  the  enormous  majority  of  the 
people.  What  was  done?  The  principle  of  Brother- 
hood was  applied.  Some  of  us,  in  concert  with  some 
theosophical  Hindus,  gathered  together  a  small  com- 
mittee to  mark  out  what  were  the  essential  doctrines  of 
Hinduism,  and  what  were  unessential  and  sectarian. 
After  that  sketch  had  been  made,  we  set  to  work  to  get 
scholars  to  collect  from  Indian  scriptures  passages  which 
bore  upon  these  doctrines  characteristic  of  Hinduism, 
and,  with  that  material  gathered  together,  a  Theosophist 
sat  down  and  wrote  a  text-book  of  Hinduism.  Having 
written  it,  a  hundred  copies  were  drawn  in  proof,  and 
sent  to  the  heads  of  all  the  great  Hindu  sects  and  schools 
of  philosophy.  They  were  asked  to  read  it  through,  to 
strike  out  anything  they  objected  to,  to  mark  in  any- 
thing they  thought  essential ;  and  when  these  books  had 


84  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

travelled  round  in  that  way  the  whole  circle  of  the 
quarrelling  Hindu  sects,  they  came  back  again  into  our 
hands  with  all  the  emendations  and  suggestions.  Once 
more  we  sat  round  the  book,  examined  the  criticisms, 
adopted  the  widely  supported  suggestions,  with  such 
success  that,  when  the  elementary  and  the  advanced 
text-books  on  Hinduism  were  issued,  they  were  taken  up 
by  all  the  sects  over  India  and  adopted  as  a  fair  pre- 
sentment of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Hinduism. 
They  have  been  taken  up  in  school  after  school,  adopted 
by  prince  after  prince,  so  that  when  the  great  Mussulman 
ruler  of  Hyderabad  in  the  Deccan  wanted  to  give  his 
Hindu  subjects  Hindu  education  in  the  whole  of  the 
State  schools,  he  simply  took  these  books  and  placed 
them  in  every  school,  so  that  the  Hindus  among  his 
people  might  be  instructed  in  their  own  faith.  The  same 
thing  was  done  by  the  English  Government  in  the 
Princes'  College  in  Rajputana,  because  they  found  that 
secular  education  made  princes  who  were  immoral  and 
unfit  to  rule.  During  the  last  eight  years  these  books 
have  spread  everywhere,  everywhere  accepted  and  every- 
where used.  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  the  divisions 
among  Christians  are  so  much  deeper  that  they  cannot 
do  what  the  Hindus  have  done,  or  that  you  have  not 
more  on  which  you  agree  than  on  which  you  disagree; 
and  that  you  could  not  teach  the  children  that  in 
which  you  are  united,  and  leave  them  in  their  manhood 
or  their  womanhood  to  add  the  sectarian  parts  of  the 
doctrines  for  themselves?  In  India,  to  show  you  the 
effect  of  this,  one  of  the  directors  of  public  education 
asked  me :  "Cannot  you  write,  Mrs.  Besant,  a  text-book 


BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED   TO    SOCIAL    CONDITIONS      85 

for  the  Christians?"  My  answer  was:  "Yes,  I  could 
write  it,  but  I  don't  think  they  would  use  it."  It  must 
come  from  so  recognised  Christian  authority.  I  quite 
grant  that  a  Theosophist  would  do  it  better  than  anybody 
else,  because  the  Theosophist  has  no  quarrel  with  any 
form  of  religious  belief,  and  because  the  whole  of  his 
study  leads  him  along  the  lines  of  recognising  the  points 
of  union  rather  than  the  points  of  divergence;  but  it 
need  not  be  done  by  a  Theosophist,  only  by  some  one 
with  the  spirit  of  Theosophy  in  him,  and  that  only 
means  the  spirit  of  the  Divine  Wisdom,  of  which  every 
separate  religion  is  an  expression,  so  that  there  ought 
to  be  no  quarrel  with  any. 

Supposing  that  to  be  done  for  the  whole  of  the  Empire 
wherever  Christians  are  found,  see  how  enormous  would 
be  the  gain ;  and  it  would  not  be  so  difficult.  There  are 
certain  doctrines  you  all  accept  if  you  are  Christian  at 
all :  you  would  only  have  to  put  those  into  a  rational, 
intelligible  form,  and  then  gather  from  your  own  Scrip- 
tures the  verses  which  support  and  give  them  authority 
to  all  who  look  on  those  Scriptures  as  authoritative.  I 
have  had  in  my  mind  an  idea  that  may  possibly  be  carried 
out,  of  trying  whether  it  would  not  be  possible  to  write 
a  Universal  Text-Book  of  Religion  and  Morals,  with 
texts  from  every  Scripture  of  the  great  religions,  from  all 
the  Bibles  of  mankind,  drawing  the  authority  in  support 
of  the  universal  doctrine,  and  in  that  way  making  a 
book  that  Christian  and  Hindu,  Pars!,  Buddhist  and 
Mussulman  could  use ;  for  all  their  Scriptures  might  be 
quoted  in  support  of  the  general  doctrine,  and  each 
might  then  add  its  own  specific  teachings  to  that  great 


86  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

broad  foundation,  showing  thereal  Brotherhood  of  faiths. 
That  is  a  dream,  but  I  think  it  may  become  a  reality. 

Along  that  line,  then,  in  our  education  we  must  have 
religious  teaching,  in  order  that  we  may  have  a  firm 
foundation  for  morals.  With  regard  to  other  teaching, 
what  would  grow  out  of  the  principle  of  the  State  being 
a  great  family,  with  children  of  many  ages  and  vary- 
ing capacities  that  ought  to  be  equally  trained?  There 
would  grow  up  a  system  of  education  in  which  one  broad 
common  basis  would  be  given  to  every  child  alike  up  to 
about  the  age  of  ten  or  eleven  years,  and  then  there 
would  come  a  differentiation  according  to  the  capacities 
of  the  children.  You  would  no  longer,  when  a  child  has 
musical  capacity,  insist  that  that  child  shall  get  a  smatter- 
ing of  three  or  four  other  arts,  so  that  he  is  not  good  in 
any  one,  but  only  superficial  in  all.  If  you  saw  musical 
ability  you  would  let  the  other  points  go,  and  music 
would  form  the  predominant  part  of  the  education  of 
such  a  child.  If  you  found  power  of  colour,  power  of 
form,  then  along  the  plastic  or  the  painting  art  the  child 
would  have  developed  his  natural  capacity;  and  slowly 
and  gradually  you  would  learn  that  the  power  of  art  must 
pass  into  the  handicrafts  of  the  nation,  and  that  large 
numbers  of  your  boys  and  girls  should  be  trained  to  the 
handicraft  as  against  the  machine-made  product;  be- 
cause there  you  have  the  possibility  of  general  beauty 
coming  back  to  life,  and  there  alone  will  the  sense  of 
beauty  be  cultivated  throughout  the  nation.  Where  you 
see  the  tendency  is  literary,  there  you  should  not  insist, 
especially  as  you  do  with  girls  still,  that  they  should  all 
play  a  little  music,  and  all  do  a  little  drawing,  and  all 


BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED   TO    SOCIAL   CONDITIONS      87 

learn  a  little  singing ;  you  would  let  all  that  go,  and  you 
would  cultivate  the  literary  faculty  where  you  found  it, 
and  make  that  the  special  point  of  this  more  specialised 
education.  Where  you  found  the  scientific  faculty,  there 
you  would  make  that  the  most  important  part  of  the  ed- 
ucational curriculum,  remembering  only  that  you  must 
add  to  scientific  training  something  of  literature  and  the 
ideal,  otherwise  your  science  will  tend  to  produce  vul- 
garity and  lack  of  the  wider  understanding  of  human 
life.  Where  you  find  mechanical  power,  there  you  will 
cultivate  that  especially,  always  remembering  that  no 
boy  should  leave  school  until  he  has  learned  some  method 
of  being  useful  to  the  State  while  earning  his  own  live- 
lihood. Unskilled  labour  should  be  a  thing  of  the  past 
in  every  department  of  human  life.  It  is  necessary  that 
you  specialise  at  an  age  which  is  early  enough  to  enable 
a  boy  to  learn  efifectively  that  which  is  to  be  his  liveli- 
hood in  later  life.  A  good  deal  of  mistake  is  being 
made  in  the  education  of  the  day,  where,  when  the  boy 
has  to  earn  his  livelihood  along  some  line  of  manual 
work,  too  much  of  the  literary  is  given  to  the  sacrifice  of 
manual  dexterity.  You  want  far  more  practical  training 
in  your  schools  than  you  have  to-day,  and  the  continual 
pointing-out  that  one  form  of  human  activity  is  not  in- 
herently nobler  than  any  other  form ;  that  the  man  who 
uses  his  hands  well  is  as  honourable  in  the  use  of  them  as 
the  man  who  uses  his  brain  well.  What  is  dishonour- 
able is  that  either  brain  work  or  manual  work  should 
be  badly  done.  Your  really  destructive  spirit  along  all 
these  lines  is :  "Oh,  it  is  good  enough ;  it  will  do."  There 
is  nothing  that  will  do  unless  it  is  done  as  well  as  you 


88  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

are  able  to  do  it ;  otherwise  it  is  slop  work,  and  degrad- 
ing in  itself.  It  is  not  the  kind  of  work  you  do  that 
makes  you  either  honorouble  or  dishonourable ;  it  is  the 
spirit  in  which  you  do  it,  and  the  quality  of  the  work 
that  you  turn  out.  Until  you  can  get  that  through  the 
nation,  as  it  is  not  to-day — until  you  can  give  back  to  the 
workman  the  dignity  of  the  artist,  and  not  want  every 
carpenter  to  educate  his  boy  superficially  so  that  he  may 
be  a  clerk  instead  of  a  handicraftsman,  spoiling  your 
crafts  and  overloading  your  offices — until  you  can  bring 
back  that  balance  of  human  duty  and  human  labour, 
there  is  little  hope  of  a  sane  and  healthy  society  amongst 
you. 

Pass,  again,  from  that  to  another  thing  that  is  badly 
wanted  in  education ;  but  I  think  that  is  learned  more  in 
the  playground  than  in  the  classroom — discipline,  the 
sense  of  duty  to  a  larger  life.  That  may  sound  rather  a 
grand  sort  of  description  to  give  of  the  effect  of  a  game 
on  a  boy,  but  it  is  true.  Where  a  boy  is  a  member  of  a 
team — cricket,  football,  hockey,  what  you  like — ^that  boy 
will  never  be  a  success  unless  he  learns  to  think  of  his 
side  and  not  of  himself,  and  that  is  a  larger  self  than  his 
own  personal  claims.  It  is  in  the  playground  that  the 
boys  and  girls  learn  many  a  lesson  which  makes  them 
better  citizens  in  later  life — ^the  sense  of  order,  the  sense 
of  discipline,  the  doing  your  work  in  your  place,  wher- 
ever you  are  put  in  the  field.  You  may  have  one  place  or 
another  in  the  cricket  field  or  the  football  field,  but  the 
test  of  the  boy  is  that  he  does  his  work  well  in  the  place 
where  he  is,  and  does  not  want  to  be  somewhere  esle 
when  his  captain  has  placed  him  there.  That  moral 
discipline  of  the  playground  is  more  valuable  than  the 


BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED   TO    SOCIAL   CONDITIONS      89 

discipline  of  the  classroom,  for  it  is  voluntary,  gladly 
obeyed,  and  it  is  stimulated  by  an  ideal,  unalloyed 
by  fear.  Hence  the  value  of  the  playground,  and  the 
value  of  teaching  boys  really  to  play.  For  the  greatest 
danger  of  these  so-called  democratic  nations  is  that 
they  have  no  sense  of  discipline,  no  sense  of  order,  no 
sense  of  obedience;  without  these  no  nation  can  be 
great.  When  you  get,  as  you  sometimes  do  get,  a  thing 
that  happened  last  time  I  was  in  Australia,  that  an 
apprentice  boy  at  a  mine,  because  he  was  reproved  for 
not  doing  his  work  rightly,  at  once  left  work,  and  then 
the  whole  mine  struck  in  order  to  defend  this  young 
scamp's  liberty — there  is  not  much  chance  of  building  a 
nation  out  of  materials  like  that;  you  have  only  got  a 
heap  of  marbles  with  no  cohesion,  with  no  binding  sense 
of  duty  nor  sense  of  responsibility,  and  out  of  those 
materials  you  can  never  make  a  State.  Without  dis- 
cipline, order,  obedience,  no  possibility  of  greatness. 
But  all  that  has  to  grow  out  of  the  education  definitely 
based  on  these  ideas  of  Brotherhood,  of  reincarnation, 
and  law. 

Pass  from  that  department  of  life,  and  turn  to  a 
very  important  question — Penology,  the  treatment  of 
criminals.  What  is  the  criminal?  Criminals  fall  into 
two  great  classes:  one  class  of  young  souls,  and  they 
need  to  be  educated;  another  class  of  souls  whose 
development  has  been  lopsided,  so  that  the  intellect  has 
grown,  but  the  conscience  has  not  developed  side  by  side 
with  it — ^by  far  the  more  dangerous  criminals  those,  and 
far  more  difficult  to  deal  with.  Now,  the  young  soul  is 
very  largely  a  savage,  the  man  at  so  low  a  stage  of  human 


90  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

evolution  that  earlier  in  the  evolution  of  our  race  he 
would  have  been  guided  into  some  savage  tribe  in  some 
island  or  desert,  where  the  rough  discipline  of  that  savage 
life  would  have  begun  the  hewing  of  him  into  shape — 
rough,  hard,  cruel,  but  gradually  building  up  that  young 
soul  into  a  sense  of  duty  to  'his  tribe.  Now,  as  things 
have  changed,  and  human  evolution  has  gone  forward 
rapidly,  there  are  not  places  enough  in  the  world  where 
those  conditions  are  available  for  the  gradual  training  of 
these  younger  souls.  The  civilised  nations,  as  we  call 
them,  have  been  spreading  everywhere  over  the  world's 
surface,  have  been  driving  these  miserable  people  out 
of  their  possessions,  have  taken  their  lands,  largely 
murdered  them,  have  appropriated  the  land  and  dis- 
possessed the  earlier  possessors  into  the  next  world. 
What  has  become  of  all  those  ?  They  have  got  to  come 
back,  and  they  tend  by  natural  law  to  come  to  the 
nations  who  have  been  most  active  in  sending  them  out 
of  their  possessions.  It  is  quite  natural,  if  you  think 
that  we  live  under  law,  not  by  chance;  and  it  is  not, 
perhaps,  if  I  may  say  it  with  all  respect,  very  wonderful 
that  the  people  of  Great  Britain  have  a  rather  extra 
share  of  those  unfortunate  savages  to  look  after.  They 
come  into  the  slum,  and  there  they  are  bom  really 
savages.  If  you  look  at  them  you  call  them  congenital 
criminals.  But  they  are  really  young  souls,  without 
morality,  without  much  brains,  with  a  certain  craft  and 
cunning  and  cleverness,  but  fundamentally  young.  Then 
you  find  others  who  have  come  out  of  that  lowest  con- 
dition of  savagery,  but  who  are  not  yet  at  the  point 
where  the  restraints  of  the  society  that  suits  the  older 


BROTHERHOOD    APPLIED    TO   SOCIAL    CONDITIONS      QI 

souls  are  tolerable  to  them.  And  so  you  get  a  great 
crop  of  occasional  criminals,  with  the  tendency  to  turn 
them  into  habitual  criminals.  Then  you  have  that  other 
class  I  spoke  of,  the  lopsided  people,  whom  I  said  were 
the  most  difficult  to  deal  with;  men  who  are  really 
clever,  but  turn  their  cleverness  to  plundering  their 
fellows  instead  of  using  it  within  the  limitations  of  the 
law.  That  is  a  large  class.  Sometimes  they  just  go 
over  the  edge  of  the  law,  sometimes  they  just  keep 
within  it,  but  from  the  social  standpoint,  remember, 
there  are  many  social  criminals  who  always  keep  on 
what  is  sometimes  called  the  street-side  of  the  law — 
that  is,  they  do  not  go  within  the  jail — such  a  man  as 
one  I  spoke  of  the  other  day,  who  had  wrecked  the 
railway  system  of  a  whole  district  in  order  that  out  of 
that  wreckage  he  might  build  himself  up  an  enormous 
fortune.  He  is  not  a  burglar  from  the  technical  stand- 
point, he  is  not  a  thief  that  a  policeman  might  catch 
hold  of,  but  in  the  sight  of  karma,  and  in  the  sight  of 
the  eternal  justice,  that  man  who  by  legal  means  has 
robbed  thousands  of  others  of  their  means  of  livelihood 
is  a  worse  thief  than  the  one  who  has  picked  a  pocket 
and  is  thrown  into  jail.  There  are  a  good  many  things 
in  a  civilised  country  which  lie  very  nearly  along  the  line 
of  legal  or  illegal  theft,  a  good  deal  of  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  company-promoting,  where  it  is  just  a  toss-up 
whether  there  is  really  fraud  that  can  be  proved;  but 
with  the  remarkable  fact  that  while  the  companies 
always  perish,  and  the  people  who  took  shares  are 
beggared,  the  company-promoter  comes  out  at  the  top, 
and  becomes  quite  a  successful  person.     Now  all  that. 


92  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

from  the  social  standpoint,  is  utterly  immoral,  but  we 
cannot  call  them  criminals  in  the  technical  sense,  al- 
though now  and  then  they  go  a  little  too  far,  and  then 
the  criminal  law  catches  them. 

How  should  those  be  dealt  with  who  are  really  the 
young  souls?  how  shall  we  avoid  turning  them  into 
habitual  criminals  as  we  do  now  ? — for  is  there  anything 
more  miserable  and  more  shameful  than  that  a  man 
should  go  back  time  after  time  till  fifty,  sixty  convictions 
are  registered  against  him  in  the  police  court,  and  the 
sentence  grows  longer  and  longer  because  he  is  a 
habitual  criminal?  He  has  been  manufactured  into 
that.  You  ought  not  to  treat  a  man  who  has  committed 
a  crime  against  your  legal  system  by  consigning  him  to 
prison  for  seven  days,  or  a  month,  or  a  year,  growing 
longer  and  longer  and  longer  after  every  return  to 
temporary  freedom.  You  don't  use  people  who  are  ill 
like  that;  you  never  find  a  doctor  committing  a  small- 
pox patient  to  a  hospital  for  seven  days,  nor  a  fever- 
stricken  one  for  a  month ;  they  are  committed  until  they 
are  cured,  and  that  is  the  way  in  which  you  should  deal 
with  anyone  of  marked  criminal  propensities.  You 
should  not  punish,  you  should  only  help ;  and  you  should 
take  that  child-soul  and  train  him  into  decency  of  living. 
For  one  thing,  you  should  never  have  in  your  prisons 
any  form  of  useless  labour  as  a  punishment.  The 
criminal  who  is  really  a  savage  always  dislikes  labour; 
he  is  always  idle — that  is  part  of  his  youth ;  and  if  you 
give  him  a  form  of  labour  that  is  punitive  and  not  useful, 
you  only  increase  his  natural  disgust  for  every  kind  of 
labour,  and  make  him  hate  it  more  thoroughly  when  he 


BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED   TO    SOCIAL    CONDITIONS      93 

comes  out  of  jail  than  he  did  when  he  went  in.  Taking 
up  shot  and  carrying  it  to  one  side  of  the  prison  yard, 
and  then  carrying  it  back  again,  or  the  useless  torture 
of  the  treadmill,  these  make  criminals,  they  do  not  cure 
them.i  You  want,  when  the  criminal  comes  into  your 
power,  to  take  him  in  hand  as  you  would  take  a  younger 
brother  who  does  not  know  how  to  guide  himself,  and  it 
is  your  duty  as  the  elder  to  guide  him ;  you  need  to  train 
him  in  some  honest  trade  whereby  he  might  gain  a 
livelihood;  you  need  to  discipline  him,  not  cruelly,  but 
firmly  and  steadily;  you  need  to  lay  down  the  very 
wholesome  law  that  if  a  man  will  not  work  neither  shall 
he  eat,  and  teach  him  in  the  prison  to  earn  his  dinner 
before  he  enjoys  it.  You  need  to  set  him  to  work  at 
trades  whereby  he  may  earn  his  own  living  within  the 
walls  of  the  jail;  and  if,  after  you  have  taught  him  a 
trade  so  that  he  can  earn  his  living,  and  outside  the  jail 
have  found  him  an  opportunity  of  decent  livelihood — if 
then  he  refuses  to  work,  and  comes  back  again  into  your 
hands,  then  you  should  keep  that  discipline  upon  him 
until  he  really  is  cured,  even  though  it  be  for  many  and 
many  a  year,  for  you  are  training  him  into  better  char- 
acter. You  might  make  the  prison  life  less  of  a  dis- 
grace than  it  is  now;  give  him  rational  amusement, 
amusement  that  will  cultivate,  instead  of  having  him 
deadened  by  the  continual  feeling  of  disgrace  within  the 
prison  walls.  You  may  restrain  him — that  may  be 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  society;  but  you  should 
treat  him  as  a  younger  one  in  the  national  household,  to 

1 1  am  told  that  these  punishments  are  no  longer  used  in 
English  jails.    If  that  be  so,  a  step  has  been  made  in  advance. 


94  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

be  gradually  trained  up  into  decent  living;  let  the  will- 
ingness to  live  the  decent  life  be  the  only  key  to  the  door 
of  the  jail. 

But  you  may  do  much  before  there  is  any  need  to  send 
them  to  prison  at  all.  There  is  a  system  which  is  just 
beginning  here,  called  the  Probation  System,  one  that  has 
been  worked  in  America  with  very  great  success,  and  one 
that  a  late  member  of  our  Society,  Miss  Lucy  Bartlett, 
has  had  the  immense  privilege  of  introducing  into  Italy, 
so  that  it  has  been  made  the  law  of  the  land.  Novv  what 
is  that  system?  When  a  young  boy  or  girl  commits  a 
first  offence,  he  is  not  sent  to  jail  if  someone,  a  good 
citizen,  of  decent  standing  and  good  life,  will  come 
forward  in  the  court  and  say:  ''I  will  take  charge  of 
that  boy  or  girl,  or  young  man  or  young  woman.  I  will 
be  his  friend  and  look  after  him."  Then  the  sentence  is 
not  one  of  imprisonment ;  it  is  a  sentence  which  is  over 
the  lad's  head  for  a  time ;  and  if  he  will  not  be  helped, 
then  it  is  allowed  to  take  effect.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  is  very  seldom  the  case.  This  man  or  woman 
coming  forward  out  of  the  more  leisured  classes  of  so- 
ciety, and  becoming  a  friend  to  that  younger  brother  or 
sister,  is,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  a  means  of  re- 
deeming that  younger  one  from  evil  into  good ;  the  older 
makes  a  friend  of  him,  takes  him  out  sometimes,  talks 
with  him,  trusts  him  really  as  a  brother  or  a  sister,  and 
great  is  the  redeeming  power  of  human  love  in  restoring 
self-respect,  and  great  the  desire  for  approval.  Those  are 
the  motives  that  are  brought  to  bear  on  one  who  has 
only  just  set  his  feet  on  the  path  of  criminality,  and  that 
in  most  cases  brings  him  back  to  virtue ;  and  the  friend- 


BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED    TO    SOCIAL    CONDITIONS      95 

ship  that  began  in  the  probation  goes  on  through  the 
rest  of  life,  strengthening,  helping,  teaching  both  the 
helper  and  the  helped.  The  system  has  been  in  opera- 
tion for  some  time  now  in  America,  long  enough  to  test 
it;  in  Italy  only  for  some  two  or  three  years,  too  short 
a  time ;  man  after  man  and  woman  after  woman  of  the 
leisured  classes  has  come  forward  to  act  as  friend  and 
helper  of  the  one  who  has  come  within  the  grip  of  the 
law.  Surely  no  better  application  of  Brotherhood  to 
criminal  treatment  could  be  found  than  that;  it  is  the 
realisation  of  the  duty  of  those  who  are  beyond  the 
temptation  to  vice  to  their  youngers  who  have  fallen 
under  its  power. 

I  can  hardly  leave  this  subject  without  saying  a  word 
on  Capital  Punishment.  That,  of  course,  cannot  find  de- 
fence from  anyone  who  realises  the  principle  of  Broth- 
erhood. Some  of  you  may  remember  the  saying  of  a 
witty  Frenchman :  "Que  messieurs  les  assassins  com- 
mencent" ;  but  it  is  not  from  the  lower  that  reforms  be- 
gin, but  from  the  higher.  You  cannot  expect  your  mur- 
derer to  respect  human  life  if  you  have  taught  him  by 
your  criminal  legislation  that  the  right  penalty  for  mur- 
der is  to  murder  again.  True,  one  comes  from  passion 
and  the  other  from  the  law;  but  if  the  law  does  not 
teach  respect  for  human  life,  how  should  the  passions 
of  the  criminal  honour  that  sacredness?  It  is  not  only 
from  that  general  principle  that  you  make  human  life 
cheap  by  destroying  it,  but  from  another  even  more 
important.  You  cannot  get  rid  of  that  murderer  of 
yours ;  you  can  only  get  rid  of  his  body,  and  his  body  is 
the  most  convenient  prison  in  which  you  can  keep  him. 


g6  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

You  can  lock  up  his  body  and  prevent  him  from  com- 
mitting any  further  murders,  but  you  cannot  lock  him 
up  when  you  have  driven  him  out  of  his  body  by  the 
hangman's  noose;  you  have  not  killed  him,  you  cannot 
kill  him,  you  have  only  killed  his  body;  and  you  have 
driven  him  out  into  that  next  world  which  interpene- 
trates this  world,  and  whose  inhabitants  are  with  us  all 
the  time;  you  have  sent  him  out  into  that  other  world 
hating,  cursing,  full  of  anger  and  revenge  against  those 
who  have  cut  short  his  life.  He  acts  as  the  instigator  of 
other  murders;  he  stimulates  other  criminals  into  the 
last  possibility  of  crime.  Have  you  ever  noticed  that  a 
brutal  murder  is  sometimes  repeated  over  and  over  again 
in  the  same  community  until  you  get  a  cycle  of  murders 
of  one  particular  kind?  I  know,  of  course,  that  the 
Press,  in  reporting  every  detail  of  those  horrors,  adds 
the  forces  of  imagination  to  the  power  of  temptation 
which  comes  from  the  man  you  have  sent  to  the  other 
side.  In  a  civilised  country  no  such  details  of  brutal 
crime  should  ever  be  given;  people  should  understand 
that  that  stimulates  the  faculty  of  imitation,  and  so  makes 
repetition  of  the  crime  more  likely.  Another  reason 
why  you  should  never  send  a  man  out  like  that  is,  that 
when  the  criminal  is  in  your  hands,  remembering  the 
lives  that  lie  in  front  of  him,  you  should  try  to  give  him 
something  to  take  with  him  into  the  other  world  which 
he  can  turn  into  capacity  and  moral  sense;  you  should 
remember  he  will  come  back  again  to  a  physical  body, 
and  it  is  your  duty  to  make  that  next  birth  of  his  as  much 
an  improvement  on  the  present  as  it  is  possible  for  hu- 
man thought  and  human  love  to  make  it.  We  have  a 
duty  to  these  young  souls  around  us  in  order  that  they 


BROTHERHOOD    APPLIED    TO   SOCIAL    CONDITIONS      97 

may  profit  by  our  civilisation,  and  not  suffer  from  it  as 
they  too  often  do  to-day. 

When  you  turn  to  economics,  what  will  be  the  result 
of  Brotherhood  there  ?  The  detailed  working  out  of  that 
problem  will  certainly  need  the  keenest  intellects  in  order 
to  devise  some  scheme  of  production  and  distribution 
which  shall  make  human  life  less  burdened  on  the  one 
side,  less  full  of  useless  luxury  on  the  other.  But  not 
along  the  rough-and-ready  lines  of  the  Socialism  of  the 
streets  are  these  great  and  difficult  problems  rightly  to 
be  solved.  You  need  to  solve  them  by  the  most  careful 
consideration  of  all  the  problems  which  are  interlinked 
the  one  with  the  other.  Some  system  of  general  co- 
operation, of  general  profit-sharing,  or  something  along 
those  lines,  will  be  the  principle  on  which  the  changed 
conditions  will  go;  but  while  you  will  make  the  lot  of 
the  toilers  far  lighter  and  happier,  you  will  never  give  to 
the  ignorant  the  control  over  that  on  which  their  food 
supply  depends ;  for  that  means  ruin.  Let  me  give  you 
one  illustration  to  show  you  what  I  mean.  There  have 
been  a  large  number  of  strikes  in  this  country  for  years 
and  years  past,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  many  of  those 
were  brought  about  by  the  greed  of  the  employing  class, 
and  by  the  unfair  treatment  of  the  workers;  but  none 
the  less  they  have  in  more  than  one  case — in  fact,  in 
many  cases — reduced  the  workers  to  a  lower  condition 
than  they  were  in  before.  I  was  up  at  Tyneside  the 
other  day.  Newcastle  with  its  adjoining  ports,  Sunder- 
land, and  the  whole  coast  along  there,  was  once  one  of 
the  great  ship-building  centres  in  England.  Strike  after 
strike  made  shipbuilding  impossible  to  carry  on,  because 

7 


98  .THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

the  men  could  not  pay  their  way.  The  result  is  that  it 
has  ceased  to  be  a  great  shipbuilding  district;  that  the 
trade  has  largely  gone  away  from  the  Tyneside,  and  that 
those  parts  are  falling  into  decay.  You  cannot  blame 
the  men  who  struck;  they  tried  to  get  better  conditions 
for  themselves ;  they  did  not  understand  the  difficulties 
of  all  these  large  commercial  firms,  and  that  they  might 
readily  make  shipbuilding  impossible  for  the  shipbuilder 
by  pressing  for  a  particular  rate  of  wage  which  was  not 
too  much  for  them,  but  more  than  at  the  time  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  trade  enabled  the  shipbuilder  to  pay. 
And  so  on  and  on  in  endless  cases.  Careful  thought  and 
deliberate  judgment  are  wanted.  Many  proposals  have 
been  made  by  the  trades  unions  themselves — a  sliding 
scale  of  wages,  arbitration  boards,  and  so  on — all  steps 
in  the  right  direction.  But  your  difficulty  with  arbitra- 
tion boards  is  that  their  decision  is  not  always  accepted. 
When  people  go  to  arbitration  they  hope  to  get  a  deci- 
sion on  their  own  side;  when  it  does  not  come  out, 
they  are  not  always  willing  to  submit.  When  I  was  in 
New  Zealand  last  year  there  had  been  a  great  struggle 
between  employers  and  men ;  at  last  both  applied  to  the 
arbitration  court,  but  when  the  decision  was  given 
against  the  men,  the  men  refused  to  go  back  to  work. 
You  cannot  play  that  way  with  these  great  economic 
questions ;  no  one  trade  should  ever  decide  entirely  for 
itself  what  should  be  the  rate  of  wage  that  it  is  possible 
for  the  employers  to  pay,  for  the  question  is  complicated 
by  many  considerations ;  it  is  not  one  trade,  but  it  is  the 
balance  of  all  trades  on  which  the  ultimate  decision  has 
to  turn.     Hence  the  need  of  ability,  of  power  to  under- 


BROTHERHCMDD    APPLIED    TO    SOCIAL    CONDITIONS       99 

Stand,  of  wide  study  of  economic  questions  which  no 
handiworker  is  able  to  give.  There  is  where  the  difficulty 
comes  in,  and  where  there  is  need  on  both  sides  of  a 
spirit  which  shall  seek  the  common  good;  otherwise  at 
the  end  there  is  only  more  trouble  than  before,  and  the 
trade  vanishes  where  the  conditions  for  carrying  it  on 
are  made  impossible.  Exactly  the  same  thing  is  going 
on  now  in  Australia.  The  men  who  know  conditions  of 
mining  and  things  of  that  sort  are  laying  down  the  wages 
which  shipping  companies  must  pay  to  their  sailors. 
When  a  P.  and  O.  boat,  for  instance,  goes  within  the 
waters  of  Australia,  they  will  soon  be  compelled  to  pay 
their  men  at  the  particular  rate  of  pay  which  has  been 
fixed  on  economic  conditions  in  Australia.  What  will  be 
the  result  ?  The  P.  and  O.  boats  will  not  go ;  they  can- 
not ruin  themselves  to  please  the  Australian  working- 
men;  hence  the  means  of  communication  will  be  very 
largely  cut  off ;  and  when  the  harm  is  done,  it  is  too  late 
then  to  cry  out  for  the  remedy.  Those  are  the  kind  of 
things  that  are  going  on  in  every  direction  with  the 
coming  of  manual  workers  into  power,  because  the 
attempt  to  rule  has  come  before  the  conditions  of  rule 
have  been  understood. 

It  is  very  much  the  same  when  you  come  to  deal  with 
all  questions  of  Woman's  Labour.  Woman  claims  the 
right  to  labour,  but  very  often  she  has  forgotten  that 
employers  can  play  upon  certain  characteristics  of  the 
woman  that  nothing  can  alter,  because  they  are  funda- 
mental and  natural.  When  a  woman  has  taken  up  the 
trade  of  the  wife  and  the  mother,  and  then  goes  out  to 
work  in  the  mill,  leaving  the  children  behind  and  the 


ICX)  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

baby  uncared  for  save  by  hired  care,  then  wages  are 
driven  down  because  she  is  willing  to  work  for  lower 
wages,  knowing  the  misery  of  the  children  she  has  left  at 
home ;  then  comes  the  playing-off  of  the  wife  against  the 
husband,  of  the  woman  against  the  man;  the  children 
are  the  sufferers  from  the  taking  away  of  the  mother  to 
work  in  the  mill,  and  the  man  is  turned  out  to  walk  the 
streets  because  cheaper  female  labour  has  taken  his 
place.  These  are  some  of  the  complicated  difficulties 
that  arise  out  of  what  seems  the  simple  thing  of  allowing 
a  woman  to  sell  her  labour.  Women  and  men  can  never 
be  equal  in  the  labour  market,  because  the  woman  is  the 
childbearer,  and  there  comes  in  the  difference,  and  the 
question  of  the  nation's  health  and  vigour.  She  can 
never  command  the  same  wage  as  the  man,  because,  as 
I  once  heard  brutally  said  when  I  was  complaining  about 
the  starvation  wage  of  some  match-girls :  "There  is 
always  another  way  the  woman  has  to  increase  her 
income."  That  is  true,  pitifully  true ;  but  it  puts  her  at 
a  disadvantage  in  the  struggle  of  the  labour  market. 
That  which  seemed  so  promising  at  first  has  only  in- 
creased the  stress  of  economic  conditions,  has  turned 
the  man  out  into  the  streets  while  the  woman  is  trying 
to  do  the  double  work  of  the  mill  and  the  home.  That 
is  an  impossible  condition  of  things,  for  which  a  remedy 
will  have  to  be  found. 

And  so  to  deal  with  these  economic  questions  we  want 
the  best  brains  and  the  best  hearts,  the  widest  knowledge 
and  the  deepest  sympathy.  Those,  and  those  only,  can 
solve  these  terrible  economic  problems  of  the  time.  You 
cannot  solve  them  by  any  rough-and-ready  means,  nor  by 


BROTHERHOOD   APPLIED   TO    SOCIAL    CONDITIONS    lOI 

any  quick  and  sudden  means.  You  must  solve  them  by 
wisdom  and  by  love,  and  by  realising  the  nation's  inter- 
est is  a  common  interest,  not  of  class  against  class,  but 
of  union  of  all  for  the  common  good  of  the  community. 
But  then  it  is  said:  What  about  politics?  On  the 
detail  of  that,  frankly,  I  have  naught  to  say,  for  I  am 
concerned  only  with  principles.  But  one  thing  I  would 
like  to  put  to  you,  coming  back  to  that  point  of  liberty 
with  which  I  started.  People  have  supposed  that  liberty 
means  a  vote.  You  could  not  have  a  bigger  blunder. 
Liberty  and  the  vote  have  practically  nothing  in  com- 
mon. The  vote  gives  you  the  power  to  make  laws,  to 
coerce  other  people ;  it  by  no  means  gives  you  necessa- 
rily liberty  for  yourself.  We  have  never  yet  had,  as  I 
said,  liberty  upon  earth.  We  have  had  class  legislation 
of  every  kind  in  England,  but  liberty  never.  Go  back 
in  history  and  you  find  the  Kings  ruling,  and  that  built 
up  the  one  nation  of  England.  Then  the  Barons  ruled, 
and  they  did  not  on  the  whole  do  so  badly,  for  England 
was  called  Merrie  England  then,  and  certainly  no  one 
would  dream  of  applying  that  name  to  it  now.  Then 
there  came  the  England  of  Parliaments,  getting  duller 
and  duller,  deader  and  deader;  then  the  England  of 
Commercialism.  And  who  is  our  ruler  now?  Neither 
King  nor  Lords  nor  Parliament  altogether,  but  on  the 
one  side  King  Purse,  and  King  Mob  on  the  other.  Nei- 
ther of  those  is  a  ruler  who  is  likely  to  make  this  nation 
great.  Liberty  is  a  great  celestial  Goddess,  strong,  be- 
neficent, and  austere,  and  she  can  never  descend  upon  a 
nation  by  the  shouting  of  crowds,  nor  by  the  arguments 
of  unbridled  passion,  nor  by  hatred  of  class  against  class. 


102  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Liberty  will  never  descend  upon  earth  in  outer  matters 
until  she  has  first  descended  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
until  the  higher  Spirit  which  is  free  has  dominated  the 
lower  nature,  the  nature  of  passions  and  strong  desires, 
and  the  will  to  hold  for  oneself  and  to  trample  upon 
others.  You  can  only  have  a  free  nation  when  you  have 
free  men  to  build  it  out  of — free  men  and  women  both ; 
but  no  man  is  free  and  no  woman  is  free  who  is  under 
the  dominance  of  appetite,  or  vice,  or  drunkenness,  or 
any  form  of  evil  which  he  is  unable  to  control.  Self- 
control  is  the  foundation  on  which  alone  freedom  can  be 
built.  Without  that  you  have  anarchy,  not  freedom ;  and 
every  increase  of  the  present  anarchy  is  paid  for  by  the 
price  of  happiness,  which  is  given  in  exchange.  But 
when  Freedom  comes,  she  will  come  down  to  a  nation 
in  which  every  man  and  every  woman  will  have  learned 
self-control  and  self-mastery;  and  then,  and  then  only, 
out  of  such  men  who  are  free,  out  of  such  women  who 
are  free,  strong,  righteous,  ruling  their  own  nature  and 
training  it  to  the  noblest  ends — of  such  only  can  you 
build  up  political  freedom,  which  is  the  result  of  the 
freedom  of  the  individual,  and  not  the  outcome  of  the 
warring  passions  of  men. 


Lecture  V 
The   Coming  Race 

Friends:  Some  of  you  who  have  been  attending  this 
course  of  lectures  may  remember  that  in  speaking  of  the 
new  doors  opening  in  religion,  science,  and  art,  I  made  a 
somewhat  hasty  and  imperfect  reference  to  changes  that 
would  be  taking  place  in  the  human  organism  and  an 
unfolding  of  the  human  consciousness,  and  I  promised, 
in  that  brief  statement,  to  return  to  the  subject  when  I 
was  to  deal  with  "The  Coming  Race."  The  nature,  the 
character  of  that  unfolding  of  consciousness,  the  changes 
in  the  bodily  organism  of  man  that  will  accompany  those 
unfolding  powers  in  consciousness,  and  make  it  possible 
for  them  to  he  manifested  in  our  physical  world — those 
changes  naturally  fall  under  the  heading  which  I  have 
taken  for  to-night's  discourse,  "The  Coming  Race." 
For  it  is  of  one  of  these  great  changes  in  the  type  of 
humanity  that  I  have  specially  to  speak  to  you  to-night. 
In  order  to  lead  your  thoughts  to  that  rationally,  and 
without  gaps  or  chasms,  I  shall  ask  you  to  consider  with 
me  for  a  few  moments  certain  great  principles  of  study 
which  we  find  continually  used  by  the  Mystics  of  the 
past,  and  in  our  own  day  adopted  to  a  very  considerable 
extent  by  modem  science.     The  reason  why  science  has 

103 


104  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

adopted  them  is  the  same  reason  that  made  Mystics  orig- 
inally work  them  out,  and  that  is,  that  science  in  our 
own  time  has  been  dealing  with  such  enormous  periods 
of  growth,  with  such  vast  extent  of  these  periods,  that 
the  scientific  man  cannot  observe ;  that  he  is  obliged  to 
try  to  find  a  principle  by  which,  observing  what  is  near, 
he  may  be  able,  by  a  process  of  induction,  to  discover 
what  is  far  off. 

Now,  this  principle  is  called  the  principle  of  corre- 
spondences. You  find  it,  as  I  said,  used  by  Mystics  of  all 
types  in  the  past :  the  great  scientist-mystic,  Swedenborg, 
of  Sweden,  based  a  very  large  part  of  his  thought  on  the 
system  of  correspondences,  of  trying  to  discover  what 
was  far  oif  and  extensive  by  a  study  of  that  which  was 
near  and  comparatively  small.  So  in  our  own  day  with 
regard  to  science ;  and  I  remind  you  first  of  that  in  order 
to  show  you  that  in  using  this  principle  we  are  on  ground 
which  is  recognised  as  being  firm  and  stable,  and  is 
adopted  in  all  the  greater  researches  which  have  to  deal 
with  the  distant  and  the  extensive.  Science  has  made 
specially  good  use  of  this  system  of  correspondences  in 
two  lines  of  its  thought:  one,  that  of  evolutionary 
growth,  illuminated  by  the  study  of  embryology;  the 
other,  that  of  the  evolution  of  consciousness  in  human- 
ity at  large,  illuminated  by  an  observation  of  conscious- 
ness in  the  child,  the  youth,  and  the  man.  If,  for  a  mo- 
ment, we  stop  on  the  great  evolutionary  series  or  cycles 
of  the  past,  we  shall  at  once  recognise  that  direct  obser- 
vation is  only  possible  to  a  very  small  extent.  It  is  true 
that  by  the  aid  of  geology  many  buried  skeletons  of  the 
past  may  be  brought  to  the  surface  and  examined,  and 
thus  light  may  be  thrown  on  the  various  classes  to  which 


THE  COMING  RACE  IO5 

the  skeletons  in  the  time  of  the  living  animal  belonged. 
Fossil  remains  certainly  help  us  to  a  very  great  extent 
in  trying  to  study  the  evolutionary  past  of  our  globe ;  but, 
as  everyone  knows  who  has  studied  the  geological  record, 
that  record  has  large  gaps  occurring  in  it  from  time 
to  time.  It  is  exceedingly  imperfect,  exceedingly  unsat- 
isfactory, and  only  along  some  limited  lines  of  evolution- 
ary study  is  it  possible  to  find  from  the  fossils  of  the  past 
the  principle  of  life  as  it  has  gradually  grown  and 
branched  upon  our  earth.  Hence,  in  the  difficulty  of 
thus  unveiling  the  past,  evolutionists  have  turned  to  the 
study  of  the  near,  the  growth  of  the  individual,  the 
stages  through  which  his  body  passes,  especially  during 
ante-natal  life,  and  it  was  very  largely  the  study  of 
embryology  that  threw  light  on  the  evolutionary  truth. 
For  it  is  observed,  in  tracing  the  growth  of  the  human 
body  of  the  individual,  that  it  passes  through  certain 
clear,  definite,  marked  stages.  There  is  a  stage  at 
which  the  characteristics  are  those  of  the  fish,  bringing 
about  some  very  curious  results  as  regards  especially  the 
distribution  of  some  of  the  nerves ;  then  a  stage  which 
is  that  of  the  reptile;  then  a  stage  which  is  that  of  the 
mammal ;  and  so  on  up  to  the  highest  in  the  mammalian 
kingdom,  man  himself.  From  the  standpoint  of  mere 
observation  from  outside,  without  use  of  reason,  this 
sequence  invariably  followed  would  say  little,  would  sig- 
nify little ;  but  when  man  looks  at  that  with  the  eye  of 
reason,  and  not  only  observes  the  succession  of  certain 
stages,  but  applies  his  reason  to  solve  the  problem  as 
to  why  those  stages  constantly  appear,  then  it  is  he 
realises  that  in  the  body  of  the  individual  the  whole 
evolutionary  course  of  nature  is  traced  and  repeated; 


I06  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

that  in  that  highest,  the  human,  form  all  the  past  history 
of  the  evolution  of  forms  is  broadly  indicated ;  and  that 
while,  of  course,  details  cannot  be  observed,  the  great 
succession  is  seen  there,  the  invariable  sequence  ever 
repeated  in  the  highest,  the  noblest  form.  And,  working 
back  with  the  light  of  that,  science  was  then  able  to 
recognise  very  clearly  the  evolutionary  stages  of  which 
geology  yielded  up  its  imperfect  fossil  record ;  for  there 
it  found  the  great  age  of  the  fishes,  with  no  higher  form 
of  vertebrate  life  existing;  then  it  found  the  age  of  the 
reptiles,  then  that  of  the  mammals,  finally  the  human 
kingdom ;  and  looking  over  the  past  in  that  way,  illumi- 
nated by  the  observations  of  the  present,  science  recog- 
nised the  truth  of  that  ancient  principle  of  correspond- 
ences which  serves  as  a  clue  in  distant  regions  where  ob- 
servations well-nigh  fail  us,  and  enables  us,  by  the  use  of 
analogy,  to  trace  our  way  among  the  labyrinths  of  the 
past. 

It  is  not  only  along  this  line  of  seonian  evolution  and 
embryological  growth  that  science  has  found  help  from 
this  application  of  the  principle  of  correspondences.  It 
has  found  that  not  only  in  the  state  of  bodies  but  also  in 
the  state  of  minds  the  same  principle  serves  as  its  best 
clue  once  again  in  the  labyrinth  of  the  past.  It  has 
found  out  that  the  stages  of  human  consciousness  may 
be  traced  from  the  earliest  stage  of  the  will  to  live,  then 
upwards  through  the  unfolding  consciousness  of  the 
child,  in  the  stage  of  passions  of  the  youth,  in  the  stage 
of  mentality  dominating  the  maturity  of  man ;  and  it  goes 
along  these  lines  into  very  much  of  detail,  showing  us 
how  at  a  certain  stage  the  child  is  reproducing  the  savage 


THE  COMING  RACE  IO7 

condition  of  consciousness;  how  a  little  later  it  grows 
out  of  that  into  the  passional  and  barbarous;  then 
through  that  into  the  emotional,  where  art  and  beauty 
begin  to  show  themselves  as  outgrowths  from  human 
nature;  and  then  on,  at  later  stages,  to  that  splendid 
mentality  which  it  regards  as  the  crown  of  human  con- 
sciousness. 'Along  these  lines,  which  will  be  familiar 
to  all  the  thoughtful  and  the  cultured  amongst  you, 
science  has  been  led  to  new  discoveries,  has  been  able 
in  this  fashion  to  find  out  many  of  the  hidden  things  of 
nature. 

But  while  this  is  true,  there  is  a  point  at  which  science 
always  stops.  It  uses  correspondences  to  explain  the 
past ;  it  never  struck  science  to  use  them  to  try  to  fore- 
cast the  future;  and  naturally,  for  along  the  scientific 
line  such  forecast  of  the  future  is  practically  impossible ; 
science  works  by  induction,  not  by  deduction,  gathers  to- 
gether innumerable  facts,  arranges  them,  classifies  them, 
compares  them,  and  out  of  all  that  gathering,  arrange- 
ment, and  comparison  it  tries  to  find  by  a  process  of 
logical  induction  some  great  principle  in  which  all  the 
classified  facts  find  their  explanation,  and  thus  a  law  is 
discovered.  But  further  than  that  induction  cannot  take 
us.  It  cannot  take  us  beyond  the  facts  that  are  ob- 
served. Nothing  in  the  facts  observed  presages  that 
which  is  to  come ;  and  it  is  only  when  you  use  the  other 
logical  method — not  that  of  induction,  which  is  the  sci- 
entific plan,  but  that  of  deduction,  which  we  find  in  the 
philosophies  of  the  past,  which  we  find  in  the  one  perfect 
science,  the  science  of  mathematics,  the  Platonic  method 
as  against  that  of  Aristotle — it  is  only  then  that  we  find 


I08  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

it  possible  by  a  process  of  deduction  not  only  to  explain 
the  past,  but  also  to  draw  out  a  chart  of  the  future.  And 
it  is  by  using  that  noble  form  of  logical  thought  that 
Occult  Science  has  ever  been  able  to  presage  the  future 
from  the  principles  that  it  finds  existing  in  the  universe, 
unfolding  stage  by  stage.  I  want,  if  I  can,  now  to  show 
you  how  that  method  may  be  applied;  how,  knowing  the 
nature  of  man,  we  may  be  able  from  that  to  indicate  not 
only  the  past  through  which  he  has  come  from  far  be- 
yond the  range  of  what  is  recognised  as  history,  but 
also  to  throw  a  light  along  the  road  that  mankind  will 
travel  in  the  future,  seeing  the  heights  up  which  he  will 
climb,  realising  the  powers  yet  hidden  within  the  par- 
tially unfolded  and  evolved  man. 

There  is  one  other  thing  that  will  help  us  a  little  as 
well  as  the  principle  of  correspondences,  but,  so  far  as  I 
know,  this  other  clue  of  ours  has  not  been  adopted  or 
used  in  modern  science.  I  say,  so  far  as  I  know,  for  sci- 
ence is  going  on  so  rapidly  at  the  present  time  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  keep  abreast  with  all  the  details  of  the 
later  investigations.  This  second  principle  is  called  the 
principle  of  reflexion.  As  you  may  have  a  mountain  re- 
flected in  a  lake,  and  all  the  peculiarities,  the  outlines, 
the  foliage  on  the  mountainside,  will  be  reproduced  in 
the  calm  water  of  the  lake  that  washes  the  foot  of  the 
mountain ;  as  in  that  reflexion  the  highest  in  the  object 
will  be  reflected  as  the  lowest  in  the  image,  and  as  at 
every  intermediate  point  where  the  mountain  is  repro- 
duced in  the  image,  the  reflexion  of  the  mountain,  there 
will  be  a  reversal,  the  higher  being  the  lower,  and  so  on, 
until  you  come  to  the  point  of  junction  between  water 


THE  COMING  RACE  IO9 

and  mountain,  and  there  the  nearest  to  you  on  the 
mountain  will  be  reflected  in  the  nearest  to  you  on  the 
water — just  so  may  we  in  studying  man  understand 
something  of  him  by  regarding  him  as  a  reflexion  of  di- 
vinity, the  great  threefold  aspect  of  divine  life  showing 
itself  out  in  man.  But  you  may  ask  me :  What  do  you  ex- 
actly mean  when  you  say  reflexion  ?  I  mean  the  reproduc- 
tion of  similar  characteristics  in  a  grosser  and  denser 
form  of  matter.  That  is  what  we  mean  by  reflexion  thus 
applied.  Just  as  the  mountain  which  you  see  by  the  air 
is  reflected  in  the  denser  water,  so  are  spiritual  attributes 
reflected  in  grosser  matter ;  or,  otherwise  expressed,  the 
same,  or  rather  a  similar  characteristic,  works  in  grosser 
matter;  therefore  with  powers  more  limited,  therefore 
with  faculties  less  potent.  That  is  the  use  we  make  of 
this  term  "reflexion"  in  theosophical  literature.  The 
characteristics  are  the  same,  but  because  of  the  denser 
matter  their  manifestation  is  limited  and  confined.  So 
the  great  Will  which  brings  the  universe  into  existence 
is  reflected  in  the  Will  to  Live  in  man ;  and  as  that  is  the 
highest  manifestation  of  Deity,  so,  reflected  in  man,  does 
it  appear  at  the  lowest  stage  of  evolution  as  the  one 
prominent  characteristic  of  the  dawning  human  con- 
sciousness. In  the  babe,  that  will  to  live  is  practically 
the  only  sign  of  consciousness,  showing  itself  out  in 
groping  movements,  whereby  the  will  to  live  is  striving 
to  come  into  contact  with  the  outer  world  and  discover 
something  of  its  environment.  And  so  the  second  great 
manifestation  of  Deity,  the  Wisdom-Love  which  in  the 
Christian  nomenclature  shows  itself  out  in  the  person 
of  the  Son,  that  reflected  in  human  nature  comes  out  as 


no  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  emotions,  the  refined,  gentle,  unselfish  emotions  that 
form  the  second  great  stage  of  human  consciousness, 
beginning  with  the  lowest  stage  of  passion,  and  gradu- 
ally rising  unbroken  to  the  loftiest  manifestation  of  emo- 
tion; and  then  the  third,  the  creative  activity,  which, 
again,  in  the  Christian  nomenclature  would  be  the  crea- 
tive Spirit,  shows  itself  out  in  man's  one  creative  power, 
the  power  of  the  mind,  of  which  one  of  the  expressions 
is  imagination,  that  which  creates  with  the  intellectual 
force  of  man.  The  correspondence,  you  see,  is  complete, 
but  how  limited  the  manifestation  compared  with  the 
manifestation  on  the  planes  of  divinity.  Hence  this 
limited  reflexion,  this  limited  reproduction,  we  term  the 
law  of  reflexion ;  and  we  very  often  find  it  hand  in  hand 
with  the  law  of  correspondences,  giving  us  a  clue  once 
more  to  guide  us  through  difficulties  and  obscurities 
where  direct  vision  might  fail. 

Let  us  begin  at  that  point  I  spoke  of  with  regard  to 
the  human  being.  Now,  by  this  process  of  deduction, 
and  seeing  in  man  the  image  of  the  Supreme,  we  are 
not  compelled  to  stop  our  study  when  we  have  taken 
these  three  stages — the  stage  of  the  will  to  live  showing 
itself  in  activity,  the  stage  of  passion  and  emotion,  the 
stage  of  mentality;  for  we  see  that  above  those  there 
shine  out  the  three  same  attributes  of  Deity  in  subtler, 
finer  form  that  we  call  the  human  Spirit,  and  that  this 
human  Spirit,  reproducing  in  itself  the  three  great  as- 
pects, tells  us  of  the  future,  as  the  lower  reflexions  tell 
us  of  the  past.  So  that  we  cannot  only  trace,  as  sci- 
ence does,  the  unfolding  of  consciousness  through  the 
vast  ages  of  the  past,  but  we  can  follow  it  onwards  into 


THE  COMING  RACE  III 

the  future,  where  that  higher  repetition  of  divinity  is 
gradually  unfolding,  and  trace  out  for  ourselves  man's 
higher  qualities,  the  later  stages  of  human  evolution. 

Now,  it  is  true  that  in  this  the  theory  is  not  complete 
and  perfect  unless  you  recognise  the  fundamental  truth 
of  Reincarnation.  No  otherwise  can  you  trace  the  un- 
folding of  the  divine  Spirit  in  man,  save  by  giving  him 
time  and  environment  by  which  these  successive  stages 
may  be  accomplished.  For,  looking  at  humanity,  we  see 
that  very  many  men  disappeared  in  the  savage  state, 
where  only  the  preliminary  stage  of  human  conscious- 
ness had  been  unfolded ;  others  we  find  coming  into  the 
world  above  the  savage  state,  but  showing  out  only  pas- 
sions, strong,  selfish  emotions ;  others,  again,  further  on, 
showing  out  mental  powers,  and  in  them  the  mind  be- 
coming predominant.  But  unless  you  admit  here  a  se- 
quential unfolding  of  the  individual  consciousness,  you 
will  find  yourself  surrounded  by  complicated  difficulties 
when  you  try  to  undertsand  human  evolution ;  for  if  you 
follow  those  consciousnesses  onwards,  thinking  they  are 
never  to  return  to  the  school  of  life  to  learn  the  lessons 
that  they  have  not  learned  in  the  infant  school  of  savage 
life,  then  you  will  have  to  posit  a  heaven  or  heavens,  one 
of  which  is  full  of  these  souls  that  have  only  accom- 
plished savagery  on  earth ;  another  that  is  full  of  those 
that  have  reached  the  emotional  stage  without  having 
started  and  laid  the  foundation  of  the  savage;  a  third 
that  show  forth  mind,  but  not  the  will  to  live  of  the  sav- 
age, nor  the  emotion  of  the  half -cultivated  man.  And 
so  you  get  a  world  on  the  other  side  more  fantastic  than 
rational,  and  you  realise  that  somehow  or  other  in  your 


112  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

scheme  of  things  you  must  make  room  for  post-mortem 
evolution ;  and  the  very  moment  you  adopt  that,  that  mo- 
ment you  have  accepted  the  principle  of  reincarnation, 
even  though  you  may  choose  to  carry  it  on  in  other 
worlds  rather  than  in  the  present.^  With  that,  of  course, 
other  difficulties  arise,  but  on  those  I  need  not  for  the 
moment  dwell,  as  I  do  not  want  to  deal  fully  with  rein- 
carnation now.  But  suppose  you  accept  it,  then  the 
whole  thing  is  rational  before  you — a  spiritual  intelli- 
gence unfolding  in  one  stage  after  another,  and  building 
each  stage  on  the  one  that  preceded.  If  you  apply  that 
to  the  evolution  of  the  reincarnating  individual,  you 
see  the  stage  of  the  child,  the  stage  of  the  youth,  the 
stage  of  the  man,  and  you  await  the  unfolding  of  the 
spiritual  man.  Or  if  you  choose  to  look  at  it  in  the  vast 
cycles  of  the  past,  then  you  will  realise  that  you  have  be- 
fore you  animal  man,  passional  man,  intellectual  man, 
and  you  can  hardly  stop  without  thinking  next  of  spirit- 
ual man — the  four  stages  that  you  can  trace  by  this  prin- 
ciple that  I  spoke  of,  the  deduction  from  the  divine  life 
leading  you  onwards  to  the  stage  not  yet  unfolded,  save 
in  some  lofty  specimens  of  humanity.  And  when  you 
have  just  seen  these  stages  so  thoroughly  reproducing  at 
each  point  of  enlarging  sight  the  other  in  yourself — the 
four  stages  visible — the  three  and  the  dawning  of  the 
next ;  then  in  the  whole  reincarnating  life  of  the  individ- 
ual the  same  three  and  the  dawning  of  the  next ;  then  in 
evolution  the  same  three  and  the  possibility  of  the  next 

1  The  principle  of  reincarnation  is  accepted,  in  this  sense,  by  many 
Spiritualists,  who  deny  that  man  returns  to  earth.  With  them  another 
line  of  argument  would  be  followed  to  prove  the  necessity  of  reincarna- 
tion on  earth. 


THE   COMING  RACE  II3 

— it  does  not  seem  strange  then  to  come  on  to  the  races, 
as  the  Theosophist  does,  and  to  see  in  the  early  human 
race — that  which  is  really  the  first  that  can  truly  be  called 
human,  although  there  preceded  it  a  semi-animal  man — 
the  birth  of  our  present  humanity.  We  call  it  the  Lemu- 
rian  Race ;  and  it  is  interesting  that  Haekel  points  to  the 
lost  continent  of  Lemuria  as  that  which  was  the  cradle  of 
the  human  race ;  so  does  modern  science  every  now  and 
again  touch  on  these  teachings  of  the  elder  world.  In 
that  Lemurian  Race  was  shown  the  strong  will  to  live ; 
then  came  the  Atlantean,  that  which  lived  on  the  vast 
contient  of  Atlantis,  the  existence  of  which  is  being  rec- 
ognised more  and  more  by  science  by  logical  necessity, 
as  it  cannot  get  geological  evidence  or  antiquarian  evi- 
dence, the  greater  part  of  the  continent  being  whelmed 
beneath  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  Still,  antiquarian  research 
gives  us  something  by  pointing  out  to  us  identities  of 
racial  characteristics  in  places  now  separated  by  that 
same  vast  Atlantic  Ocean.  And  archaeology  shows  us  in 
ancient  Egypt,  in  the  style  of  its  painting,  in  the  sym- 
bols that  it  used,  nay,  even  in  some  of  the  human  types 
that  it  limned,  exactly  the  same  symbols,  the  same  types, 
the  same  outlines  of  philosophical  and  religious  thought 
as  in  Southern  Mexico,  in  a  civilisation  long  since  dis- 
appeared, that  was  swept  away  by  the  Aztec  civilisation, 
which  had  become  ancient  and  corrupt  when  the  Span- 
iards invaded  Mexico.  In  those  two  far  removed  por- 
tions of  the  earth's  surface,  separated  by  the  Atlantic, 
we  find  the  repetition  of  one  in  the  other.  And  there 
are  many  other  reasons  on  which  I  need  not  now  dwell, 
similarities  of  fauna  and  flora,  certain  architectural  like- 

8 


114  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

nesses,  and  so  on,  which  are  all  leading  scientific  men 
onwards  to  the  recognition  of  the  great  continent  of 
Atlantis.  Just  as  the  men  of  the  Lemurian  continent 
showed  out  only  that  will  to  live  in  clumsiest  form,  so 
did  the  men  of  the  Atlantean  continent  show  out  passion, 
appetite,  desire,  the  whole  of  their  civilisation  showing 
the  marks  of  this  predominant  passional  nature;  that 
which  might  be  expected  in  theory  showed  itself  out  in 
fact.  With  that  went — as  always  goes  with  the  passional 
and  non-intellectual  type — a  great  development  of  what 
in  these  days  we  call  the  lower  form  of  psychism.  We 
apply  that  term,  as  our  knowledge  of  these  powers  grows 
more  precise,  to  the  way  of  seeing  the  invisible,  hear- 
ing the  inaudible,  and  so  on,  that  we  find  in  some  mem- 
bers of  the  animal  kingdom ;  that  we  find  largely  devel- 
oped in  savage  nations ;  that  we  find  showing  themselves 
out  sometimes  among  the  dwellers  in  mountains  and 
in  vast  spaces  where  the  air  is  pure,  where  nature  is 
still  in  a  fairly  primitive  condition.  It  is  not  precise, 
exact  science  under  the  control  of  the  will ;  it  seems  to 
be  responsive  to  impressions  of  passions,  emotions ;  very 
rarely,  if  ever,  to  impressions  from  the  mind.  And  so, 
looking  back  on  the  great  Atlantean  peoples,  we  see  them 
showing  out  these  forms  of  psychism  that  we  connect 
with  the  higher  animal  and  with  the  lower  human  evolu- 
tion before  mentality  has  been  very  largely  developed, 
before  the  nervous  system  characteristic  of  the  mod- 
ern man  has  dominated  the  sympathetic  system  more 
characteristic  of  the  animal.  And  then  we  come  to  a 
time  when  we  can  glance  backward  and  see  the  method 
of  the  evolution  of  a  new  race,  giving  many  an  indication 


THE  COMING  RACE  II5 

to  help  US  in  our  study  of  the  Coming  Race  of  our  own 
time.  For,  looking  back  into  that  far-off  history,  we  see 
a  selection  going  on  among  the  Atlantean  people,  and 
we  notice  that  the  selection  was  made  not  amongst  those 
who  had  carried  the  Atlantean  type  to  its  highest  and 
most  triumphant  point,  but,  on  the  contrary,  from  a 
subdivision  of  that  race — a  sub-race,  as  we  call  it — in 
which  those  qualities  did  not  show  which  had  made 
Atlantis  great  and  mighty,  but  in  which  there  were  more 
germs  than  in  the  triumphant  Atlantean  of  the  coming 
development — that  of  the  mind.  Some  of  you  will  be 
familiar  with  the  name  of  the  Toltec,  the  race,  or  rather 
sub-race,  in  which  the  Atlantean  civilisation  touched  its 
highest  point.  Not  from  those  were  the  germs  of  the 
Aryan  race  chosen ;  rather  from  the  succeeding  sub-race, 
in  which,  as  I  said,  mental  qualities  were  beginning  to 
assert  themselves,  with  the  inevitable  result  that  as  those 
qualities  became  manifest,  the  others,  the  psychic,  fell 
into  the  background.  Look  round  to-day  and  you  will 
see  how  true  that  still  is  with  the  ordinary  uncultivated, 
untrained  psychic;  how  very  low  is  the  stage  of  the 
intelligence,  very  little  mental  power  going  hand-in-hand 
with  that  lower  kind  of  psychism;  and  so  the  people 
who  were  chosen  to  be  the  germs  of  our  own  great  Race 
were  not  amongst  the  most  admired  of  the  Atlantean 
civilisation,  but  were  rather  looked  down  upon  as  not 
showing  out  these  faculties  which  then  were  regarded 
as  the  most  valuable,  as  falling  below  the  triumphant 
type  of  the  Toltec,  as  people  of  little  account,  and  yet 
people  who  had  in  them  the  promise  of  the  future.  Then 
the  gathering  of  those  together,  the  isolating  of  them 


Il6  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

from  the  rest  of  the  then  civilised  world ;  the  deliberate 
breeding  of  them  into  a  type  which  was  aimed  at.  For 
all  the  great  types  of  human  kind  exist  in  the  mind  of 
the  Logos  before  they  are  made  manifest  in  the  matter 
of  our  earth — first  the  idea,  then  the  manifestation ;  and 
the  seven  great  types  which  were  to  make  up  the  hu- 
manity of  our  globe  in  the  present  cycle  of  its  exist- 
ence, those  existed  as  Ideas  in  the  Platonic  sense  of  the 
word,  those  were  the  types  towards  which  the  great 
Powers  guided  the  evolution  of  humanity ;  and  when  the 
highest  point  was  being  touched  at  the  fourth,  then 
came  the  preparation  for  the  birth  of  the  fifth.  The 
same  great  laws  which,  on  a  far  lower  scale,  are  used  by 
the  ordinary  scientific  gardener  or  scientific  breeder  of 
cattle,  when  he  is  trying  to  develop  a  new  type  that 
exists  in  his  mind,  remember,  before  he  tries  to  work  it 
out  in  petals  of  flower  or  flesh  and  blood  of  animal,  that 
ideal  type  to  which  the  scientific  breeder  directs  his 
efforts,  those  laws  help  him  to-day  which,  on  a  far  loftier 
level  and  for  mightier  purposes,  were  used  by  the  great 
Ruler  of  the  Coming  Race  in  order  to  shape  the  ideal 
type  that  now  we  know  as  the  Aryan.  If  you  compare 
one  of  the  men  of  Kashmir,  in  Northern  India,  with  your 
best  Caucasian  type,  you  will  find  they  closely  resemble 
the  one  the  other,  evidently  replicas  of  the  same  type. 
I  choose  the  man  of  Kashmir  especially,  because  he  is 
fair  of  skin,  owing  to  his  living  in  a  temperate  clime,  and 
because  from  the  shutting  in  of  his  land  from  communi- 
cation with  other  countries,  due  to  the  difficulty  of  reach- 
ing his  fellows — owing  to  that  the  type  has  been  kept 
purer  there  than  probably  anywhere  else  upon  earth. 


THE  COMING  RACE  1 17 

Fair  of  skin,  blue-  or  violet-eyed,  with  hair  brown  in 
varying  shades,  with  features  sharply  cut,  delicate  lips, 
thin  and  well-formed  nose,  there  you  have  one  of  the 
finest  types  of  human  beauty  existing  upon  earth.  You 
find  that  type  reproduced  over  and  over  again,  with 
varying  modifications  as  the  sub-races  develop,  but  the 
one  type  is  everywhere  visible ;  and  in  the  shape  of  the 
head,  with  the  forehead  largely  developed,  with  the  place 
in  the  brain  where  all  intellectual  faculties  can  be  made 
manifest,  in  that  type  of  head  you  have  the  type  of 
mentality,  the  Race  that  is  to  carry  to  the  highest  point 
the  possibilities  of  the  human  intellect.  As  you  come 
down,  looking  at  the  sub-races,  the  same  strange  point 
strikes  you  as  we  saw  with  regard  to  the  psychic  At- 
lantean,  and  the  comparatively  psychic  sub-race  from 
which  our  own  was  gradually  built  up.  Compare  to- 
gether the  refined  Roman,  luxurious,  well-built,  cul- 
tured, and  the  Goth,  who  was  the  origin  of  the  Teu- 
tonic sub-race;  there  again  you  see  the  same  thing,  the 
contrast  with  the  regnant  type  of  the  apparently  lower 
type,  the  one  that  has  in  it  the  promise  of  rising  higher 
than  its  predecessor.  Judging  by  analogy,  following 
along  similar  lines  of  thought,  we  can  very  readily  under- 
stand to-day  that  the  type  of  the  Coming  Race  will  not 
be  that  which  is  the  triumph  of  the  present,  but  rather 
those  in  whom  the  characteristics  of  the  present  are  less 
developed,  but  which  have  in  them  the  germ  of  some- 
thing more,  which  can  unfold  in  the  far-off  future  into  a 
greater  splendour,  a  diviner  manifestation.  So  that 
when  we  are  looking  for  those  who  are  the  beginnings  of 
the  Coming  Race,  we  should  not  look  for  them  to-day 


Il8  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

among  those  in  whom  our  Aryan  peoples  show  out  the 
highest  types  of  mentality,  of  intellect,  of  power,  of 
thought.  Their  work  is  to  carry  on  the  present  civilisa- 
tion to  the  zenith.  Who  but  they  can  lead  it  to  the 
highest  point  ?  They  have  developed  the  mind  which  is 
the  great  characteristic  of  this  fifth  Teutonic  sub-race; 
theirs  the  mission,  theirs  the  privilege,  to  guide  that  sub- 
race  to  its  highest  point  of  achievement.  They  only, 
whose  intellect  is  so  loftily  developed,  are  fit  to  guide  the 
present  civilisation  to  the  point  of  glory  which  it  has  yet 
to  reach,  and  it  is  they  who  are  the  leaders  of  the 
triumphant  type  of  to-day,  they  to  whom  our  present 
race  looks  up  as  the  ideal  of  all  that  is  most  splendid  in 
intellectual  power.  Not  amongst  them,  then,  should  we 
seek  the  beginnings  of  the  Coming  Race,  of  the  Race 
that  shall  be ;  for,  using  our  principle  of  correspondences, 
we  can  see  that  now  we  must  look  for  the  germinating 
of  the  spiritual  man,  not  of  the  intellectual ;  that  which 
is  beyond  intellect,  that  which  is  higher  than  the  scien- 
tific mind,  the  qualities  that  have  shone  out  in  the  great 
religious  teachers  of  the  past,  the  qualities  that  char- 
acterised the  Buddha,  the  Christ,  are  the  spiritual  qual- 
ities as  apart  from  the  intellectual ;  and  it  is  the  germi- 
nating of  those  qualities  now  which  will  make  the  origin 
of  the  Race  that  is  to  be. 

But  we  can  see  in  the  race  of  the  present  signs  of  the 
changing  evolution  which  shall  gradually  show  out  the 
coming  type  of  consciousness,  which  shall  gradually 
adapt  the  bodies  to  the  fuller  manifestation  of  the  qual- 
ities that  shall  gradually  unfold.  For  what  is  the  great 
mark  of  such  spiritual  types  of  humanity,  what  the 


THE  COMING  RACE  1 19 

quality  that  shines  out  above  all  others  wherever  they 
appear  upon  earth?  It  is  that  quality  that  to-day  we 
nanie  Brotherhood,  the  recognition  of  that  unity  of  life 
which  makes  for  all-embracing  compassion  and  bound- 
less self-sacrifice.  Those  are  the  types  that  we  see  in 
these  great  Ones  of  our  race,  they  who  have  unfolded 
the  spiritual  nature,  who  show  out  the  glory  of  the  Spirit. 
It  is  very  marked  that  in  every  one  of  those  mighty 
Teachers  of  the  past  this  is  the  quality  which  above  all 
others  shines  out  as  their  distinguishing  mark  among  the 
men  of  the  generation  in  which  they  are  born.  The 
love  of  the  helpless  and  the  weak,  the  effort  ever  to  raise 
those  who  are  downtrodden  and  oppressed,  the  effort  to 
share,  to  uplift,  to  make  happy — in  a  word,  to  save ;  that 
is  the  great  spiritual  characteristic  of  all  the  Saviours 
of  the  world,  and  therefore  at  the  present  time  those 
are  making  ready  for  the  beginning  of  the  Coming  Race 
who  show  out  in  conception  and  in  practice  their  belief 
in  the  universal  Brotherhood  of  man.  They  may  be 
less  developed  in  intellect,  that  is  not  what  is  for  the 
moment  wanted  from  them;  they  may  be  less  glorious 
in  the  triumphs  of  the  mind,  that  is  not  the  material 
that  is  needed  specially  for  the  Coming  Race ;  it  is  these 
higher  qualities  of  the  Spirit  that  must  be  looked  for 
by  the  Leader  of  that  Race  as  the  material  which  gradu- 
ally He  can  mould  into  the  type  He  has  in  His  mind,  and 
so  out  of  those  germinal  possibilities  evolve  the  Man 
that  shall  be. 

Now  let  us  pause  for  a  moment  and  ask  what  are  the 
special  marks  of  that  Race  in  consciousness  and  in  body. 
In  consciousness,  clearly  the  recognition  of  unity.   That 


120  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

is  essential;  for  what  the  intellect  divides  the  Spirit 
unites.  The  recognition  of  life  in  each  rather  than  of 
the  separated  form,  the  recognition  of  the  one  Self  in  all 
rather  than  the  separated  selves  that  are  marked  out  by 
the  separated  bodies,  that  will  be  the  great  mark  in  con- 
sciousness, the  new  unfolding ;  wherever  that  recognition 
of  unity  is  made,  there  is  one  of  the  signs  of  the  Coming 
Race.  And  then,  side  by  side  with  that,  growing  inevit- 
ably out  of  it,  a  breadth  and  liberality  of  tolerance  will 
mark  those  in  whom  the  sense  of  unity  is  beginning  to 
unfold.  All  that  is  narrow  and  exclusive,  all  that  tends 
to  separate  one  from  another,  all  that  emphasises  dif- 
ferences instead  of  emphasising  likenesses,  all  those  are 
against  the  unfolding  of  the  consciousness  that  knows  the 
One  in  the  many,  and  recognises  Divinity  in  all.  With 
that  unfolding  consciousness  will  come  a  type  of  body 
of  which  there  are  beginning  to  be  many  amongst  us 
to-day.  When  there  is  going  to  be  a  variation  which 
will  start  a  new  evolutionary  type,  it  is  always  noted  that 
those  out  of  whom  the  variation  grows  are  what  is  called 
unstable.  Instability  is  the  mark  of  progress,  or  of  de- 
generation. There  is  the  instability  of  health,  but  also 
of  disease ;  and  with  the  changing  type  of  the  nervous 
system  you  find  this  instability  present  in  both  its  forms. 
If  you  look  around  you  at  the  present  time,  what  is  one 
of  the  marks  of  the  bodies  in  the  most  advanced  races 
of  the  earth?  Nervous  troubles  of  every  kind,  and 
most  marked  amongst  the  most  highly  developed.  It  is 
needless  to  draw  your  attention  to  that ;  everyone  knows 
it.  The  greater  tension  of  the  nervous  system  shows  it- 
self out  amongst  us  in  all  kinds  of  different  ways ;  sad- 


THE  COMING  RACE  121 

dest  of  all,  in  the  extraordinary  increase  of  madness  in 
the  most  highly  civilised  nations  of  the  world.  Lunatic 
asylums  are  always  multiplying,  for  as  soon  as  a  new 
one  is  built  it  gets  filled,  and  another  is  demanded.  That 
is  the  sad  sight  when  we  are  looking  around,  looking  for 
the  Coming  Race;  the  present  race  suffers  by  the  very 
conditions  that  that  race  has  made  for  itself;  all  the 
separative  conditions  of  competition,  struggle,  class  and 
individual  and  trade  antagonism,  all  these  are  destruc- 
tive to  the  evolving  nervous  system  of  man.  The  en- 
vironment is  impossible,  the  conditions  ruinous  for  the 
evolution  of  a  finer,  more  delicate  nervous  organisation ; 
and  yet  the  resistless  force  of  nature  presses  onwards 
against  the  human  race,  forces  it  onwards  whether 
it  will  go  or  not,  and  the  evolutionary  forces  cannot  be 
opposed  save  at  the  risk  of  destruction. 

Now  that  is  one  of  the  lessons  that  needs  to  come  out 
of  these  studies  for  the  immediate  guiding  of  our  own 
lives  to-day.  We  are  living  in  an  environment  that  is 
destructive  of  the  higher  evolution,  and  at  our  peril  we 
leave  it  as  it  is  when  the  Coming  Race  must  inevitably  be 
born.  If  we  would  go  on  we  must  adapt  ourselves,  and 
that  adaptation  is  the  crying  need  of  the  time.  For 
amongst  us  to-day  are  being  bom  children  in  whom  this 
finer  nervous  organisation  is  showing  itself  already, 
children  of  delicate  nervous  type,  but  not  necessarily  at 
all  unhealthy;  often  perfectly  healthy,  but  with  the 
nervous  system  so  delicately  poised  that  it  is  always  in 
danger  of  jar  and  injury.  There  must  be  many  amongst 
you  who  know  that  out  of  your  own  personal  experience 
as  fathers  and  mothers;  there  may  be  born  into  your 


122  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

family  a  little  child  whose  nervous  system  is  so  delicate, 
so  exquisitely  poised,  that  the  child  is  very  readily 
thrown  out  of  balance,  and  suffers  quite  abnormally. 
One  thing  that  it  is  very  necessary  for  the  fathers  and 
mothers  of  the  time  to  understand  is,  that  as  these  chil- 
dren come  to  them  for  protection,  for  training,  for  help, 
they  must  remember  that  they  have  there  organisms 
which  suffer  and  enjoy  more  keenly  than  organisms  that 
are  less  delicately,  less  exquisitely  balanced.  Such  a 
child  feels  pain  where  a  child  of  rougher  type  would 
pass  through  unnoticing.  The  intense  joy  which,  on  the 
other  hand,  marks  such  an  organism  is  always  balanced 
with  periods  of  intense  depression.  Such  children 
should  be  guarded  as  far  as  possible  from  all  that  can 
jar  and  trouble.  It  is  useless  to  try  to  make  them  live 
in  the  surroundings  that  suit  those  whose  nervous  sys- 
tems are  not  so  fine.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  parent  to  try  to  provide  for  such  children  gentler  and 
more  harmonious  surroundings,  realising  that  without 
those  the  delicate  instrument  would  be  jarred  and  thrown 
out  of  tune,  so  that  that  from  which  the  most  lovely 
melodies  might  have  been  drawn  will  be  only  an  instru- 
ment fit  to  be  thrown  away,  destroyed.  Think  for  a  mo- 
ment of  the  conditions  under  which  you  are  living  now 
in  London.  During  the  last  ten  years  London  has  be- 
come almost  intolerable  to  live  in,  if  only  for  the  noise, 
the  continual  rattle,  the  shrieking  and  hooting  that  fill  the 
streets ;  the  shaking  of  the  very  earth  itself  under  the 
heavy  vehicles  of  all  sorts  that  we  place  upon  it.  Lon- 
don is  becoming  a  city  where  to  live  in  peace  you  would 
want  to  go  about  with  cotton-wool  stuffed  into  your  ears 


THE  COMING  RACE  I23 

and  spectacles  over  your  eyes  so  that  you  might  not  see 
too  clearly,  and  with  your  nose  closed  so  that  you  might 
not  smell  the  horrible  smells  with  which  the  streets  are 
continually  filled.  Literally,  what  will  have  to  be  done 
is  this :  all  the  more  refined  and  cultured  people  will  have 
to  go  out  of  these  huge  towns  and  leave  them  to  the  peo- 
ple who  like  them.  For  remember,  there  are  many  peo- 
ple who  like  them ;  there  are  plenty  of  people  who  en- 
joy the  rattle  and  the  noise  and  the  tumult  of  a  London 
street.  There  are  plenty  of  country  peasants  who,  if  you 
bring  them  up  to  London,  like  it  enormously ;  but  if  you 
take  the  London  lad  or  lass  and  put  them  down  the  coun- 
try they  say  how  frightfully  quiet  and  dull  it  is.  Why  not 
let  the  great  cities  go  to  the  people  who  like  them,  who 
will  be  helped  to  evolve  by  them?  For,  mind,  that 
which  is  destructive  to  a  delicate  nervous  system  is  the 
necessary  stimulus  for  the  evolution  of  a  nervous  system 
of  a  lower  and  coarser  type.  I  do  not  want  to  abolish  all 
these  great  cities  at  all ;  but  I  would  say  to  any  who  feel 
the  suffering  which  grows  out  of  the  noise  and  the  rush 
and  the  hurry.  Your  place  is  no  longer  here,  and,  above 
all,  it  is  no  place  for  the  children.  For  the  finer  the 
organisation  of  the  father  and  the  mother  from  the 
nervous  standpoint,  the  finer  will  be  the  nervous  organ- 
isation of  the  child;  and  if  they  suffer  from  it,  their 
best  policy  is  to  leave  London  for  the  country,  and  sur- 
round themselves  and  the  children  of  the  Coming  Race 
with  sweeter  and  better  environments.  It  is  not  only 
that  these  vast  towns  that  are  deforming  and  defacing 
England  are  an  impossible  environment  for  the  Coming 
Race;  we  must  also  adapt  ourselves  to  the  new  condi- 


124  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

tions  by  changes  of  food,  by  changes  of  method  in 
ordinary  living.  The  food  that  the  great  majority  of 
people  now  use,  flesh,  is  utterly  unsuited  to  the  finer  type 
of  nervous  organisation.  You  may  notice  how  people  of 
a  finer  type  shrink  from  it  instinctively.  Children  of  a 
finer  type,  when  they  realise  that  meat  was  a  living 
thing,  will  turn  aside  from  it  with  disgust,  and  leave  it 
untouched.  That  instinctive  dislike  is  one  of  the  things 
that  will  be  growing  very  much  amongst  the  little  ones ; 
more  and  more  will  they  revolt  against  the  use  of  flesh. 
But  it  would  be  wise  not  only  to  notice  how  that  revolt 
is  growing,  but  deliberately  to  avoid  the  use  of  such 
articles  of  diet  yourself,  if  you  desire  to  train  your 
bodies  into  a  preparation  for  the  Coming  Race.  For 
the  body  which  is  nourished  on  flesh  and  on  the  many 
forms  of  alcohol  is  a  body  which  will  be  thrown  out  of 
health  by  the  opening  up  of  the  higher  consciousness; 
and  nervous  diseases  are  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
higher  consciousness  is  trying  to  express  itself  through 
bodies  clogged  with  flesh-products  and  poisoned  with 
alcohol.  For,  let  me  take  a  point  of  very  great  impor- 
tance which  has  direct  bearing  upon  this.  As  the  new 
bodies  develop,  and  the  higher,  more  nervous  organisa- 
tion of  the  physical  body  grows,  the  next  of  your  bodies, 
the  astral,  will  become  more  and  more  highly  organised 
year  by  year.  The  organisation  of  that  next  body  of 
yours,  of  finer  matter  than  the  physical,  is  going  on  very 
rapidly  at  the  present  time  under  the  pressure  of  thought, 
which  all  educated  and  cultured  people  use  at  least  to 
some  extent.  As  that  body  becomes  more  highly  organ- 
ised, its  special  sense-organs  come  into  activity,  and 


THE  COMING  RACE  I25 

then  we  have  what  is  called  a  higher  psychism,  which  is 
not  the  result  of  an  astral  body  unorganised  and  vibrat- 
ing to  every  passing  wind  of  emotion,  but  of  a  body 
highly  organised,  with  its  own  senses  developed,  and 
those  senses  seeking  to  express  themselves  through  the 
grosser  body  of  the  physical  plane.  Now  there  is  one 
organ  in  your  brain  which  is  the  sixth  sense,  the  sense 
through  which  all  these  astral  cognitions,  astral  emotions, 
will  show  themselves  down  in  your  own  waking  con- 
sciousness, and  that  is  the  body  which  very  much  puz- 
zles many  of  our  doctors  and  scientific  men — ^the  pitui- 
ta.ry  body.  That  is  not,  as  many  of  them  think,  a  mere 
vestigial  organ  left  from  the  past ;  it  is  that,  but  it  is  also 
the  organ  of  which  the  finer  internal  differentiation  is 
making  the  sense  for  the  higher  psychic  powers  of  the 
Coming  Race.  Now  that  is  matter  of  fact  known  to  the 
occult  student,  because  he  sees  that  development  going 
on  in  his  own  case  and  in  the  case  of  others  around  him ; 
and  in  proportion  as  that  finer  and  well-organised  astral 
body  hands  down  into  the  brain  the  various  things  which 
it  cognises,  so  does  he  find  the  pituitary  body  functioning, 
so  does  he  experience  changes  that  go  on  in  that.  Now, 
that  body,  according  to  one  of  the  latest  discoveries  of 
modem  science,  is  at  once  affected  by  the  vapours  of 
alcohol;  it  is  one  of  the  glands  of  the  body  which  are 
most  readily  poisoned,  and  even  a  very  small  amount  of 
alcohol  poisons  the  pituitary  body,  and  chokes  its  high- 
est evolution.  Obviously,  then,  if  you  want  to  ease  that, 
if  you  want  at  this  stage  of  evolution  to  put  a  little  evolu- 
tionary pressure  even  on  the  bodies  of  the  fifth  Race, 
and  thus  ease  that,  one  of  the  first  things  that  should  be 


126  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

said  to  you  is :  Never  touch  alcohol  at  all  in  any  form, 
for  if  you  do  the  vibrations  of  the  alcohol  poison  the 
very  means  of  communication  between  the  astral  and 
the  physical  bodies,  and  the  developing  of  them  to  higher 
purposes  is  one  of  the  marks  of  the  Coming  Race,  the 
means  whereby  it  will  sense  the  astral  world  in  waking 
consciousness;  hence  the  instruction  that  you  will  have 
from  everyone  who  is  speaking  of  this  and  understands 
the  conditions:  Do  not  only  give  up  all  forms  of  flesh, 
but  also  take  care  that  your  diet  is  free  from  every  trace 
of  alcohol.  Now,  these  are  laws  of  nature  that  you 
cannot  get  over;  and  if  you  make  up  your  mind  to  cling 
to  the  fifth  Race  way  of  diet,  then  you  must  be  content  to 
remain  fifth  Race,  and  go  no  further.  No  one  wants  you 
to  go  further  than  you  wish  to  go,  but  the  conditions 
are  unchangeable,  and  the  more  that  is  recognised  the 
better  will  it  be.  Above  all,  with  those  children  that  I 
have  been  mentioning,  take  care  not  to  try  to  force 
them  in  any  way,  nor  to  induce  them  to  take  those  arti- 
cles of  diet  which  will  injure  their  growing  delicacy  of 
nervous  organisation,  and  destroy  that  developing  or- 
gan in  the  brain  by  which  they  will  bring  their  knowl- 
edge through  into  ordinary  life. 

Then  let  me  remind  you  of  the  way  in  which  this  may 
be  done.  Let  us  suppose  that  you  desire  to  hasten  the 
coming  of  the  Coming  Race ;  let  us  suppose  that  you  are 
not  willing  to  wait  for  the  slow  processes  of  nature, 
lasting  hundreds,  thousands,  tens  of  thousands  of  years, 
but  want  to  co-operate  with  nature,  as  we  ought  to  do 
to-day,  having  reached  the  stage  of  evolution  that  we 
have  reached,  where  human  intelligence  can  quicken  the 


THE  COMING  RACE  127 

workings  of  nature.  The  first  thing  that  you  must  do  is 
to  make  meditation  a  part  of  your  daily  life.  Now,  medi- 
tation has  three  stages :  first,  the  reining  in  of  the  wan- 
dering mind,  the  checking  of  its  thinking  from  one 
point  to  another  continually  in  activity;  then  the  fixing 
of  that  controlled  mind  on  a  single  object  of  thought; 
then  the  contemplation  of  that  object  in  order  that  it 
may  be  reproduced  in  yourself.  That  process  of  medi- 
tation is  the  way  in  which  the  unfolding  consciousness 
may  be  definitely  stimulated,  and  there  is  no  other 
healthy  and  sane  way.  By  a  daily  practice  of  that  sort, 
the  fixing  of  your  mind  either  on  the  ideal  Self  or  on 
some  ideal  of  virtue  that  you  desire  to  reproduce  within 
yourself — as  you  follow  that  practice  of  meditation, 
the  higher  consciousness  develops,  and  you  change  your 
contact  with  the  world.  Let  me  take  a  case.  You  come 
across  a  man  who  is  very  untruthful.  Normally  he  may 
deceive  you  for  a  time  until  you  get  evidence  that  ap- 
peals to  the  mind,  until  you  can  argue  logically  and 
prove  that  the  man  is  not  truthful ;  a  slow  process,  but 
one  that  needs  to  be  used  in  the  present  stage.  What 
will  be  the  process  of  recognising  untruth  where  the 
spiritual  nature  has  begun  to  develop  by  the  process  of 
meditation  ?  You  would  meditate  on  truth ;  that  is  the 
first  step.  By  that  regular  daily  meditation  on  truth  you 
make  your  subtle  body  vibrate,  so  that  the  nature  of  your 
subtle  body  becomes  that  which  answers  to  truth ;  then 
when  a  man  who  is  untruthful  comes  along  you  do  not 
have  to  reason;  by  the  direct  process  of  intuition  you 
recognise  that  man  as  false ;  he  jars  you  just  as  a  false 
note  jars  on  a  musical  instrument.    There  is  no  process 


128  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

of  reasoning,  no  need  to  go  into  evidence,  no  need  to  seek 
for  proofs ;  you  feel  him,  see  him  to  be  false,  by  intui- 
tion instead  of  reasoning.  Now,  I  know  a  case  of  that 
kind  in  India,  although  I  don't  suppose  you  will  quite 
copy  my  Indian  friend,  for  he  was  a  man  who,  from  his 
boyhood  upwards,  had  meditated  every  day  upon  truth, 
and  he  had  done  it  for  forty  years.  That  is  a  long  time 
from  the  western  standpoint.  The  effect  of  that  was  that 
he  had  so  tuned  himself  to  the  note  of  truth — he  hap- 
pened to  be  a  judge — that  no  evidence  could  deceive  him, 
however  plausible;  he  knew  when  a  man  was  lying  by 
the  jar  that  he  felt  within  himself.  I  only  mention  that 
as  a  special  case  to  show  you  the  method  by  which  this 
meditation  unfolds  the  inner  powers,  so  that,  instead  of 
the  slow  processes  you  are  accustomed  to,  a  direct  in- 
tuition tells  you  the  character  of  the  person  with  whom 
you  come  into  touch.  I  might  go  through  the  whole 
string  of  the  virtues ;  the  principle  is  the  same  every- 
where. In  addition  to  meditation,  you  must  practise. 
You  must  practise  in  your  daily  life  the  keenest  sym- 
pathy that  you  are  able  to  develop ;  by  deliberate  effort, 
force  yourself  into  sympathy  with  everyone  whom  you 
may  happen  to  meet ;  make  yourself  feel  as  that  person 
feels ;  and  above  all,  practise  it  with  those  who  are  lower 
in  evolution  than  yourself,  for  there  sympathy  becomes 
most  useful,  and  the  practise  of  feeling  as  the  less- 
evolved  feel  enables  you  to  lift  them  up  nearer  to  your 
own  level.  You  must  not  only  practise  sympathy,  too,  in 
your  daily  life;  you  must  practise  the  absence  of  the 
sense  of  separateness,  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world 
to  do  for  all  of  us  who  belong  to  this  Teutonic  sub-race. 


THE  COMING  RACE  129 

Our  sense  of  individuality  is  so  strong  that  in  everything 
we  feel  "my,"  "mine,"  "my  property,"  "my  books,"  "my 
house,"  "my  friends" — a  continual  repetition  of  the 
"my."  You  must  get  rid  of  that ;  you  must  get  rid  of  the 
feeling  which  instinctively  claims  something  that  you 
call  your  own  as  against  other  people.  Now,  it  is  not  an 
easy  thing  to  do ;  and  the  first  stages  are  very  disagree- 
able, jarring  the  fifth  sub-race  type  of  mind.  Try  to  get 
rid  of  your  sense  of  individual  ownership  in  the  things 
that  are  yours.  How  often  you  hear  a  generous-tem- 
pered man  say:  "Oh,  I  would  have  given  it  to  him  at 
once  if  he  had  asked  for  it,  but  I  did  not  like  his  taking 
it !"  Why  not?  Because  you  feel  separate ;  because  of  "I" 
and  "he,"  "mine,"  "his."  The  next  Race  is  not  going  to 
have  that  sense  so  strongly  developed ;  and  if  you  want 
to  take  part  in  the  building  of  it,  the  sooner  you  get  rid 
of  it  the  better  for  yourselves.  Practise  not  minding  hav- 
ing your  things  taken  away  and  used  by  anybody  who 
wants  to  use  them.  It  sounds  strange  to  you,  but  it  is  a 
commonplace  in  India.  My  Indian  friends,  when  I  first 
knew  them,  used  to  be  astonished  when  I  said  to  them : 
"May  I  use  such-and-such  a  thing?"  "Why,  of  course, 
if  you  want  it,"  was  the  invariable  answer ;  and  at  last  I 
got  to  realise  that  that  was  a  very  much  higher  position 
towards  objects  of  property  than  the  self-assertive  own- 
ing. Similarly,  in  India,  when  you  have  a  garden,  any- 
body who  likes  comes  in,  sits  under  your  trees,  lights  a 
little  fire,  and  cooks  his  dinner  there  if  he  likes.  When 
one  day,  again,  in  my  very  early  days,  before  I  under- 
stood this,  I  said  to  somebody :  "Oh,  but  do  you  like  peo- 
ple coming  into  you  garden  like  that  without  asking  per- 

9 


130  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

mission  ?"  "What  else  is  a  garden  for  ?"  was  the  reply. 
That  is  the  natural  feeling  there  because  of  the  com- 
munal life  which  has  been  universal  for  thousands  of 
years.  You  think  of  the  use  of  the  thing  and  the  man 
who  wants  to  use  it ;  that  he  wants  it  is  the  reason  why 
he  should  have  the  use  of  it.  That  is  a  very  long  way 
from  our  fifth  sub-race  way  of  looking  at  property. 
Practise  that,  then,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  this  utterly  ex- 
aggerated sense  of  separation  which  we  find  in  our  so- 
cial life  at  the  present  time.  This  habit  of  self-sacrifice 
— sacrificing  your  own  whims,  wishes,  wants,  every  day 
of  your  life,  for  the  sake  of  making  life  easier  for  those 
around  you — that  will  be  one  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  Coming  Race.  And  as  you  do  it,  you  will  gradually 
find  that  you  won't  mind ;  that  the  pleasure  of  making 
another  person  satisfied  is  far  greater  than  the  pleasure 
of  having  a  thing  for  yourself;  that  the  words  of  the 
Christ  are  literally  true :  ''It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than 
to  receive";  not  a  duty  but  more  blessed,  more  happy, 
so  that  the  joy  that  comes  out  of  the  sharing  utterly 
swamps  any  feeling  of  self-sacrifice.  That,  again,  will 
be  the  great  social  type  of  the  Coming  Race. 

See  how  practically,  then,  this  thought  of  the  Coming 
Race  bears  upon  our  living  of  to-day.  Those  who 
would  prepare  themselves  for  the  part  of  that  changed 
type  of  man  must  begin  building  it  up  in  their  character, 
their  emotions,  their  minds  to-day,  by  meditation,  the 
opening  of  the  consciousness  by  practise,  the  training  of 
the  life  into  expressions  along  higher  lines.  That  race 
will  be  the  builder  of  a  universal  religion,  in  which 
sharing  what  each  has  of  truth  will  be  the  only  form 


THE  COMING  IL\CE  I3I 

of  missionary  effort.  That  Race  will  be  the  builder  of  a 
brotherly  civilisation,  in  which  the  need  of  every  man 
will  be  the  measure  of  what  he  has  given  to  him;  in 
which  the  power  of  every  man  will  be  the  limit  of  his 
responsibility.  Those  will  be  the  great  changes  that 
will  come,  and  you,  if  you  will,  may  take  part  in  that 
changing ;  you,  even  in  the  present  civilisation,  may  hold 
to  the  higher  ideal,  and  try  to  make  it  acceptable  to  the 
minds  of  your  fellow-men.  But  our  hope  is  mostly  in 
the  young,  in  those  who  have  not  yet  been  hardened  in 
the  brutal  competition  which  marks  the  commercial  and 
class  life  of  to-day.  The  young  lads  and  the  young  girls, 
still  plastic,  still  easily  fired  by  great  ideals,  with  nervous 
systems  finer  in  many  cases  than  ours,  and  hearts  warmer 
than  those  that  have  been  chilled  in  the  experience  of 
life — in  them  lies  the  hope  of  the  future.  For  they  shall 
make  ideals,  they  shall  create  them  in  the  world  of 
thought,  and  out  of  the  world  of  thought  those  ideals 
shall  be  sent  into  the  world  of  matter,  and  make  the 
Coming  Race,  which  shall  build  a  civilisation  happy, 
glorious,  beautiful,  and  free,  but  in  which  it  shall  be 
realised  that  the  greatest  freedom  expresses  itself  in  the 
greatest  service, 


Lecture  VI 
The  Coming  Christ 

Friends  :  Looking  back  over  the  long  story  of  the  past 
we  can  see  certain  mighty,  grandiose  figures  emerging 
from  the  great  crowd  of  human  beings,  men  who  tower 
far  above  their  generation,  who  are  giants,  as  it  were, 
with  pigmies  around  them;  however  far  we  look  back 
such  figures  are  ever  to  be  seen,  until  at  last  the  mists 
appear  to  roll  across  this  great  vista  of  the  past,  and 
even  through  those  mists  we  can  discover  the  outlines  of 
great  Ones  who  teach  and  bless  mankind.  To  the  great 
mass  of  students  these  figures,  standing  out  in  the  past, 
appear  very  closely  to  resemble  each  other.  We  cannot, 
as  it  were,  distinguish  Them  with  regard  to  Their  knowl- 
edge or  Their  power;  all  are  so  far  above  the  men  of 
the  time,  so  far  above  the  most  advanced  humanity  of 
our  own  day,  that  it  seems  impossible  to  throw  Them 
into  any  kind  of  order,  or  to  understand  how  far  They 
are  part  of  one  great  group  of  mighty  Beings;  what 
relation  They  bear  to  each  other  we  cannot  see;  what 
Their  rank  in  the  hierarchy  of  the  superhuman  we  are 
practically  unable  to  say.  But  as  the  occult  student 
tries  to  study  the  past,  there  are  certain  indications  that 
he  can  grasp  which  serve  as  a  kind  of  guide  as  to  these 

132 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  I33 

mighty  Beings.  He  sees  great  world-cycles  of  different 
extent,  embracing  longer  or  shorter  periods  of  time,  and 
he  is  able  to  trace  some  relation  between  these  mighty 
Beings  and  the  cycles  of  the  world,  the  point  of  time 
at  which  They  appear,  at  which  They  manifest.  !And  by 
this  study  of  the  past,  assisted  by  occult  methods,  these 
periods  in  the  world's  story  and  these  Teachers  of  the 
world's  humanity  fall  into  quite  definite  relations. 

We  can  notice,  looking  back,  that  there  are  four  great 
ages  through  which  the  world  passes  in  its  long  evolu- 
tionary history,  ages  that  are  often  referred  to  in  what 
are  called  the  mythologies  of  the  past,  ages  which  are 
characterised  very  differently  the  one  from  the  other, 
and  in  which  the  whole  cycle  of  the  world's  story  is 
divided.  It  may  be  noticed  that  at  the  beginning  of  each 
of  those  huge  cycles  a  very  great  figure  appears,  as 
though,  when  the  world  was  entering  on  a  new  phase  of 
life,  it  were  necessary  that  a  special  benediction  should 
descend  upon  it,  a  special  light  should  shine  out.  When 
we  ask  who  are  the  great  Ones  who  mark  these  longest 
periods  in  human  history,  we  are  told  that  They  are 
Beings  belonging  to  past  worlds,  belonging  to  other 
planets  than  our  own,  planets  and  worlds  older  in  the 
scale  of  manifestation;  that  They  have  passed  through 
all  the  struggles  of  an  evolving  life,  that  They  have 
formed  part  of  a  humanity  that  long  since  has  passed 
away  and  been  numbered  in  the  records  of  the  universe, 
too  far  off  to  touch  a  world  like  ours;  that,  reaching 
through  human  to  superhuman  growth.  They  have 
finally  joined  their  consciousness  with  the  consciousness 
of  the  Logos  Himself,  expanding  to  His  consciousness, 


134  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

uniting  with  His  nature,  and  yet  never  losing  that  centre 
which  is  the  result  of  Their  long  evolution  up  the  human 
and  the  superhuman  ladder.  Holding  that  centre  in  all 
the  life  of  God,  it  is  possible  for  Them  to  draw  around 
Themselves  again  a  circumference  which  shall  enable 
Them  to  become  manifest  in  any  world,  in  any  race. 
Where  a  centre  is,  a  circumference  can  ever  be  drawn ; 
and  around  such  a  centre  in  Deity  itself,  of  the  Son 
made  one  with  the  Father,  from  such  a  centre  a  new 
circumference  of  a  human  life  may  be  drawn,  and  such 
a  Being,  mighty  in  His  Deity  and  yet  veiled  in  humanity, 
may  appear  to  enlighten  and  to  bless  the  world.  Among 
the  Hindu  people,  whose  teachers  have  carried  them  far 
along  occult  lines,  whose  sacred  scriptures  are  full  of 
occult  indications,  a  special  name  is  given  to  these  pre- 
eminent manifestations.  They  call  them  by  a  Sanskrit 
word  which  means  those  who  descend.  The  name 
avatara  may  be  familiar  to  you,  perhaps.  But  it  is  the 
significance  of  the  name  on  which  for  a  moment  I  pause. 
They  have  climbed  up  to  unity  with  the  God  head :  They 
descend  to  humanity  in  order  to  preserve  and  help.  Such 
are  the  mightiest  figures  that  appear  in  any  world,  on 
any  globe,  through  the  long  course  of  its  evolution. 
Egypt  signified  that  mystery  under  a  special  name :  they 
called  it  the  birth  of  Horus.  Christianity  has  symbolised 
it  under  another  name — Divine  Incarnation;  and  the 
Christian  will  tell  you — ^accurate  in  the  spiritual  fact, 
although  at  times  confused  in  the  definition  of  the  life — 
that  the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity  descends  upon 
earth,  and  he  regards  the  Christ  of  Judea  as  being  such 
a  manifestation  of  the  Most  High.    The  main  fact  that 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  135 

such  a  revelation  may  come  to  man  is  a  fundamental 
spiritual  truth.  It  ought  never  to  be  lost  from  sight; 
and  in  every  great  religion  it  has  ever  been  said  that  it  is 
from  that  aspect  of  the  Logos  that  these  manifestations 
descend  upon  earth.  Christianity  recognises  but  a 
single  manifestation;  Hinduism  recognises  nine  that 
have  passed  and  one  that  is  to  come.  In  Zoroastrianism 
you  find  the  same  conception.  Religions,  living  and 
dead,  have  ever  groped  after  that  highest  of  truths ;  only 
it  must  never  be  lost  sight  of  that  He  who  is  an  Avatara, 
the  highest  of  divine  manifestations,  has  been  in  some 
other  cycle  of  life  a  man  among  men,  and  that  it  is  be- 
cause of  that  long-past  experience  that  a  return  to  those 
conditions  is  possible  at  any  time. 

Leave  that  aside  for  a  moment,  and  take  another 
great  type  that  shines  out.  There  is  no  name  for  the 
next  type  I  am  just  thinking  of  except  in  Eastern  lands, 
where  they  call  him  "The  Enlightened,"  the  Buddha.  In 
the  West  that  name  is  constantly  connected  with  the  last 
of  those  manifestations,  with  the  great  Being  born  into 
the  world  nearly  six  hundred  years  before  the  Christian 
era.  He  is  called  the  Buddha.  But  among  the  people  of 
the  faith  that  He  gave  to  the  world  the  belief  is  that 
there  were  many  before  Him,  that  there  shall  be  many 
after  Him ;  that  He  is  only  one  among  the  great  host  of 
revealers  of  the  divine,  and  that  one  of  those  is  bom  in 
every  world,  in  every  Root  Race.  So  that  in  every  world 
there  are  seven  of  such  Beings,  one  manifesting  in  every 
Race ;  but  when  He  has  appeared,  then  He  passes  away 
from  earth,  having  finished  even  the  superhuman  evolu- 
tion, and  passes  on,  as  those  that  I  mentioned  passed  in 


136  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

other  worlds,  in  other  times,  in  order  to  unite  Himself 
as  the  Son  with  the  Eternal  Father,  so  that  in  a  world 
later  than  our  own  such  a  one  may  return  as  an  Avatara, 
one  who  descends.  But  note  that  the  Buddha,  mighty 
as  He  was,  climbed  to  His  greatness  through  the  hu- 
manity of  our  own  globe.  Climbing  step  by  step  up 
the  long  ladder  of  human  life,  of  superhuman  unfolding, 
He  touched  the  last  rung  of  that  ladder  when  He  was 
born  as  Gautama  into  India  some  twenty-five  centuries 
ago,  and  then,  having  finished  His  work,  passed  onward 
into  what  is  there  called  Nirvana,  the  highest  condition 
available  for  the  superhuman,  that  of  union  with  the 
divine,  though  without  loss  of  the  centre  of  which  I 
spoke. 

Considering  that  great  Teacher,  let  us  ask  what  He 
was  before  He  became  the  Buddha,  and  then  passed 
away  from  earth.  His  teaching  work  being  over.  Before 
He  took  that  last  and  greatest  of  the  Initiations  along  the 
line  He  followed.  He  had  manifested  several  times  be- 
fore on  earth,  and  manifested  in  the  same  great  Root 
Race,  the  Aryan  Race,  to  which  we  all  and  so  many 
others  belong.  For  before  that  last  step  was  taken  there 
was  another  high  office  that  He  filled  for  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  of  years.  I  do  not  want  in  any  way 
to  confuse  you  with  unfamiliar  names,  and  yet  it  is  a 
little  difficult  to  avoid  them,  because  I  want  a  name 
that  stretches  back  to  manifestation  after  manifestation ; 
and  our  own  fifth  sub-race,  the  Teutonic,  has  been  on 
earth  so  brief  a  time,  living  in  the  western  world,  that 
it  has  not  yet  created  the  general  name  which  we  can 
use  with  regard  to  these  past  manifestations.    The  east- 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  137 

ern  name  is  a  word  which  translated  means  *'the  Wis- 
dom-Truth," the  Bodhisattva;  the  name  matters  Httle 
provided  that  you  take  it  for  the  moment  that  it  signifies 
an  office,  and  the  office  is  that  of  the  Supreme  Teacher, 
not  only  teacher  of  men,  but  teacher,  as  they  would  say, 
of  Gods,  as  you  would  say,  of  Angels  and  Archangels. 
For  you  must  remember  that  the  Shining  Ones  of  the 
East  are  the  same  as  those  to  whom  over  here  you  give 
the  names  of  Angels  and  Archangels.  The  East  calls 
them  by  a  name  which  merely  means  "the  shining" ;  and 
though  it  is  often  translated  over  here  as  "God,"  much 
confusion  of  thought  thereby  is  made  as  regards  the 
great  eastern  faiths.  For  they,  like  Christianity,  pro- 
claim the  unity  of  God,  the  one  all-pervading  life;  and 
those  whom  they  call  the  Shining  Ones,  the  Devas,  are 
but  manifestations  of  that  light,  the  Angels  and  Arch- 
angels of  Christianity  or  of  Islam.  And  He  who  is  the 
Supreme  Teacher  has  for  His  pupils  Archangels  and 
Angels  as  well  as  men ;  He  is  the  one  who  is  the  Teacher 
of  all,  whether  in  the  body  of  flesh  or  outside  of  it  as 
spiritual  intelligences ;  there  is  no  other  Teacher  in  earth 
or  heaven  above  that  mightiest  One  who  fills  this  su- 
preme office. 

Now,  such  a  Teacher,  the  Supreme  Teacher  of  the 
worlds,  makes  Himself  manifest  as  man  at  the  beginning 
of  every  sub-race.  I  have  talked  to  you  so  much  of 
Races  and  sub-races  that  the  terms  will  not  be  unfa- 
miliar ;  and  if  I  remind  you  that  we  are  all  of  one  great 
Root  Race,  the  Aryan,  whether  you  take  the  first  sub- 
race  in  India;  or  the  second  along  the  basin  of  the 
Mediterranean   in  the  ancient   days;   or  the  third   in 


138  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

ancient  Persia ;  or  the  fourth  giving  birth  to  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  the  Romans,  and  then  spreading  westwards 
through  Spain,  France,  Britain,  up  to  the  North  of 
Scotland,  and  then  across  to  Ireland,  the  mighty  Keltic 
sub-race;  or  the  fifth,  the  Teutonic,  now  peopling  Ger- 
many, Britain,  America,  and  their  offshoots — if  you 
think  of  those,  the  one  Race  including  all  the  divisions, 
you  will  be  able  readily  enough  to  follow  the  manifesta- 
tions of  the  Supreme  Teacher.  Just  as  in  the  larger 
cycles  there  are  manifestations  of  great  Beings,  so  has 
every  successive  sub-race  the  appearance  of  this  great 
Teacher  as  man,  to  give  it  the  religion  under  which  the 
civilisation  shall  develop,  to  give  it  the  benediction  which 
starts  it  on  its  evolution  in  the  world. 

Looking  backwards  to  the  sub-races  that  preceded  the 
fifth,  the  Teutonic,  to  which  the  greater  part  of  you  who 
are  present  here  belong,  we  can  mark  in  each  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Supreme  Teacher,  taking  a  different  name, 
but  ever  the  same  immortal  Individuality  under  the  veil 
of  that  name.  One  name  that  is  known  to  all  of  you  who 
are  students  of  the  past  was  the  name  He  took  when 
He  led  forth  from  Central  Asia  the  second  of  the  great 
emigrations  that  passed  westward,  which  aryanised  large 
numbers  of  the  people  dwelling  in  Arabia,  in  Northern 
Africa,  in  the  whole  great  basin  of  the  IMediterranean. 
He  then  bore  the  name  of  Hermes,  a  name  familiar  to 
every  student  of  antiquity,  especially  to  the  students  of 
Egyptian  thought,  for  it  was  largely  in  relation  to  that 
that  this  mighty  manifestation  was  made,  and  in  much 
of  the  so-called  Hermetic  literature  the  name  of  Hermes, 
the  Thrice  Greatest,  is  preserved.    It  was  a  name  first 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  I39 

worn  in  I.emuria,  but  in  this  case  was  used  by  the 
Supreme  Teacher  manifesting  for  the  second  sub- race. 

Let  me  pause  a  moment  to  say  one  word  of  explana- 
tion, to  meet  a  difficulty  that  may  readily  rise  in  the 
minds  of  the  more  scholarly  amongst  you  who  have 
looked  back  to  these  past  tales.  Yott  find  the  same 
name  appearing  from  time  to  time  along  the  same 
tradition.  That  has  ever  been  so  in  the  past.  The  name 
of  the  great  teacher  himself  has  been  taken  up  by  his 
successors,  who  renewed  his  teaching  and  carried  on  the 
tradition  that  he  left ;  and  so  in  the  vast  spaces  of  time 
that  have  elapsed  since  that  Hermes  first  appeared  in 
the  second  root-race  of  the  Aryans,  others  took  up  the 
tradition,  carried  on  the  teaching,  and  the  name  was 
ever  repeated.  It  is  the  eastern  way.  No  disciple  dreams 
of  teaching  there  under  his  own  name;  it  is  under  the 
name  of  his  Master  that  he  gives  his  wisdom  to  the 
world;  and  that  not  to  conceal,  but  because  it  is  held 
that  to  the  teacher  the  credit  belongs  of  that  which  the 
pupil  may  be  able  to  expound,  and  so,  in  humility,  in 
veneration,  in  gratitude  to  the  mightiest,  those  who 
follow  Him  vv^rite  under  the  name  that  they  worship,  and 
so  hand  on  His  wisdom,  although  in  generations  much 
later  than  Himself.  It  causes  much  of  confusion,  much 
of  difficulty  when  the  people  with  the  western  historical 
sense  go  turning  over  these  ancient  writings  and  apply- 
ing their  own  canons  of  interpretation  to  people  who 
were  ancient  long  before  those  canons  were  invented. 
What  is  called  the  historical  sense  is  a  very  different 
thing  in  the  East  from  that  in  the  West.  Historical 
sense  here  means  a  sequence  of  names,  dates,  persons, 


140  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

and  that  is  what  is  regarded  as  important;  in  the  East 
it  means  the  God  unfolding  in  the  various  types  of  hu- 
manity that  may  appear;  and  that  which  they  are  in- 
terested in  is  not  a  special  individual  who  has  written 
this,  that,  or  the  other,  but  the  teaching,  the  tradition, 
handed  on  from  age  to  age,  and  ever  marked  out  from 
the  first  Revealer,  the  name  of  Him  who  gave  the 
knowledge  to  mankind.  I  do  not  want  to  dispute  which 
is  the  better  way.  I  only  mark  the  difference  that  you 
may  realise  that  in  the  likeness  of  the  name  there  is 
no  attempt  to  deceive  the  reader,  but  only  to  mark 
the  line  of  the  tradition. 

In  the  second  sub-race,  then,  appeared  Hermes.  Ages 
rolled  on.  The  third  sub-race  was  to  be  born;  the 
emigration  to  found  that  sub-race  rolled  westwards  into 
Persia.  Once  more  the  ''Wisdom-Truth"  led  the  emi- 
gration. To  that  people  he  was  known  as  Zarathustra, 
more  often  called  among  us  Zoroaster.  Fourteen  of 
those  are  known  in  the  old  story  of  Persia,  but  the 
first,  the  eldest  of  them  all.  He  alone  was  that  one  Su- 
preme Teacher,  coming  down  to  His  disciples,  build- 
ing the  policy  of  Persia,  handing  down  to  those  who 
came  after  Him  the  tradition  that  went  by  His  name; 
and  every  great  high-priest  of  that  religion  worthy  to 
bear  the  mantle  of  the  great  One,  he  also  is  known  in 
history  as  Zoroaster;  and,  as  I  have  just  said,  some 
fourteen  of  those  are  named. 

The  time  came  for  the  fourth  sub-race,  the  Keltic ;  the 
same  great  Being  came  forth  again  under  another  name, 
the  name  known  to  every  student  of  Greek  thought  as 
that  of  Orpheus.  The  Orphic  Mysteries,  the  Orphic 
tradition — these  are  phrases  familiar  to  every  student  of 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  I4I 

the  mighty  past  of  Greece.  But  the  scholars,  as  a  rule, 
with  regard  to  him  will  say,  as  was  said  in  regard  to 
Hermes:  This  is  not  an  individual;  it  is  only  a  name 
for  a  succession  of  individuals.  There  is  a  truth  in  that, 
for  there  was  such  a  succession.  The  blunder  lies  in 
not  realising  that  such  a  succession  must  have  an  origi- 
nator, and  that  the  first  and  mightiest  of  the  teachers, 
to  whom  everything  ran  back,  is  not  necessarily  a 
myth  merely  because  He  is  so  great.  Those  who  started 
the  Sun  Myth  have  done  a  great  deal  of  harm  in  cloud- 
ing the  story  of  the  past,  and  it  is  only  as  the  buried 
remains  of  that  past  are  brought  up  and  studied  by  the 
scholars  of  the  time  that  people  find  that  many  of  the 
so-called  Sun  Myths  were  mighty  Teachers  and  mighty 
Kings  in  the  childhood  of  our  race.  That  has  become 
more  and  more  palpable  as  the  excavations  go  into 
deeper  and  deeper  strata,  uncover  more  and  more  an- 
cient civilisations ;  so  that  those  who  have  been  made 
into  myths  are  now  taking  on  again  a  semblance  of 
humanity,  but  humanity  so  great,  so  divine,  that  it  seems 
scarcely  possible  to  believe  that  such  Beings  lived  in 
the  guise  of  men  on  earth.  But  you  can  trace  down  that 
Orphic  tradition  through  all  that  was  mightiest  and 
most  beautiful  in  Greece;  you  can  trace  in  by  the  Mys- 
teries I  mentioned,  by  the  names  of  the  great  Greeks 
who  declared  that  they  took  their  inspiration  from  that 
tradition.  So  we  come  to  the  last  of  the  incarnations 
of  that  great  Being  until  He  appeared  as  Gautama,  be- 
came the  Buddha,  passed  away  as  teacher  from  the 
worlds. 

Now  I  have  mentioned  those  mighty  ones  of  the  past 


K\ "R R /i  dv; 


142  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

because  without  that  it  might  seem  only  a  dream  when 
I  speak  of  such  possibilities  in  modern  times  as  well.  I 
have  traced  the  four  latest  appearances  of  Him  who  is 
the  "Wisdom-Truth,"  the  last  of  the  four  manifesta- 
tions before,  appearing  to  take  His  last  Initiation  as  the 
Buddha,  He  passed  away  and  became  the  Son  united 
with  the  Father,  no  longer  Teacher,  no  longer  Guide 
of  our  humanity.  But  there  is  never  a  break  in  the  great 
succession ;  in  that  mighty  succession  of  religious  Teach- 
ers the  chair  of  the  Teacher  never  remains  unfilled; 
there  is  ever  a  wise  one  to  fill  it,  the  wisest  who  is  living 
upon  earth ;  and  when  one  lays  down  the  sceptre  of  the 
Teacher,  which  is  the  symbol  of  His  rule,  another  is 
waiting  by  the  steps  of  the  Chair  of  Wisdom  to  take  that 
seat  of  Supreme  Teacher  as  His  predecessor  passes 
away  from  earth.  For  never  is  the  world  left  without 
its  Teacher;  never  is  mankind  left  orphaned,  without 
the  mighty  One  to  guard  and  save ;  as  one  passes  away. 
His  function  over,  another  steps  in  to  fill  the  seat  and 
carry  on  the  teaching  of  mankind. 

When  Gautama  was  initiated  as  the  Buddha,  an- 
other then  became  what  I  have  called  the  "Wisdom- 
Truth,"  the  Bodhisattva.  His  first  manifestation  upon 
earth  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  next  sub-race.  That 
you  will  very  readily  see,  and  for  that  reason  I  have  been 
tracing  down  those  names,  sub-race  after  sub-race,  that 
you  might  realise  the  relation  between  the  new  departure 
of  mankind  and  the  manifestation  of  the  Supreme 
Teacher.  So  when  the  fifth  sub-race  was  being  bom, 
when  there  was  the  slow  growth  of  the  Teuton  in  the 
forests  of  Germany,  when  the  germs,  the  seeds  of  that 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  I43 

new  sub-race  were  being  sown  over  Northern  Europe, 
then  was  made  manifest  again  the  Supreme  Teacher, 
and  He  came  to  the  world  once  more  to  found  a  new 
religion,  once  more  to  bless  a  dawning  civilisation.  The 
religion  that  He  founded,  the  civilisation  that  He  blessed, 
gave  to  him  the  Greek  name,  the  Christ.  Let  us  pause 
for  a  moment  on  that  western  name — ^name,  again,  of  an 
office.  For  it  was  not  the  name  of  the  Buddha  that  He 
wore;  it  was  not  the  name  of  an  individual.  As  we 
look  at  the  dominant  Greek  thought  of  the  time  we  find 
that  that  thought  embodied  its  highest  triumph  in  a  cer- 
tain institution  known  as  the  Mysteries.  There  were 
Mysteries  in  ancient  Eg}^pt,  in  ancient  Persia,  in  ancient 
India,  in  all  the  countries  of  that  elder  past ;  and  among 
the  Greeks  also  there  were  Mysteries — ^the  Orphic  Mys- 
teries, to  which  I  alluded,  and  many  others  known  to 
the  students  of  Grecian  history  under  many  names  of 
Grecian  Gods  and  Goddesses,  as  we  call  them,  of  the 
Teachers  of  the  past.  In  those  Mysteries  there  was  a 
certain  grade  marked  with  the  name  Christos;  these 
Mysteries  the  reflexion  on  our  earth  and  in  our  poor 
worldly  mirror  of  the  great  Initiations  that  belong  to  the 
Occult  Hierarchy  that  guides  the  religious  destinies  of 
men,  a  shadow  of  those  supreme  Initiations  thrown 
down  upon  the  mirror  of  earth  for  the  helping  of  ordi- 
nary humanity.  This  kind  of  reflexion  is  indicated,  for 
instance,  in  the  Christian  Testament  when  it  is  said  that 
Moses,  the  great  leader  of  the  Jews,  made  all  things 
according  to  the  pattern  shown  to  him  in  the  mount — a 
well-known  ancient  phrase,  the  Mount  of  Initiation — an 
indication  to  the  people  who  followed  him  as  lawgiver 


144  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

that  the  temple  which  he  outHned,  which  for  a  time  was 
seen  in  the  tabernacle  that  accompanied  the  Jews  in  the 
wilderness,  and  then  received  its  more  gorgeous  present- 
ment in  the  Temple  of  King  Solomon,  was  formed  after 
the  pattern  of  the  heavenly  things.  So  the  heavenly 
and  the  earthly  are  thus  related  as  object  and  image, 
and  the  object,  which  is  the  great  Initiations  of  the 
Hierarchy,  was  imaged  here  in  the  civilisations  of  the 
past  in  the  Mysteries,  by  which,  by  many  ordeals  and  in 
many  difficult  ways  of  training  and  of  discipline,  the 
best  men  and  women  of  the  older  civilisations  were 
guided  upwards  from  the  human  to  the  superhuman  path. 
In  those  Mysteries  there  was  this  grade,  the  Christos, 
the  anointed  one.  It  was  the  grade  of  the  Initiate  who 
had  triumphed  over  suffering,  the  grade  of  the  Initiate 
who  had  carried  the  cross,  the  grade  of  the  Initiate  who 
was  to  know  no  more  compulsory  death  or  compulsory 
birth,  that  which  marked  him  as  having  crossed  the 
threshold  of  the  superhuman,  and  being  ready  to  enter 
on  that  higher  grade  of  manifested  life.  Natural,  inevi- 
table, that  in  a  time  when  Greek  thought  was  marking 
the  highest  point  of  human  attainment  and  dominating 
Europe,  the  Greek  name  should  be  taken  to  describe  the 
mighty  One  revealed  as  Teacher  upon  earth.  What 
nobler  name  could  be  chosen,  what  title  more  significant, 
what  symbol  more  instructive,  than  to  call  the  teacher 
who  appeared  and  was  slain  by  the  name  of  the  Christ? 
In  the  early  days  of  Christianity,  as  most  of  you  prob- 
ably know,  a  difference,  which  is  being  revived  in  our 
own  day,  was  drawn  between  Jesus  the  Hebrew  and 
Christ  the  anointed  Teacher.     Look  back  to  all  those 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  145 

schools  of  philosophic  and  learned  teachers  in  the  early 
days  of  Christianity,  who,  when  ignorance  triumphed 
after  the  fall  of  Rome  and  Constantinople,  were  branded 
with  the  name  of  heretics — those  who  were  called  the 
Gnostics,  the  knowers.  A  significant  name.  If  you  turn 
over  the  pages  of  Origen,  one  of  the  greatest  teachers, 
remember,  in  the  early  Church,  you  will  find  many  pas- 
sages in  his  exposition  of  Christianity  in  which  he  says 
that  it  is  necessary  for  the  Christian  Church  to  have  in 
it  many  Gnostics,  who  should  serve  as  the  foundation 
on  which  it  should  be  built,  as  the  pillars  on  which  it 
should  be  reared.  He  used  the  word  in  the  sense  of 
knowers,  not  alluding  to  the  many  schools  classed  to- 
gether under  that  name.  In  a  famous  passage  Origen 
points  out  that,  while  it  is  true  that  Christianity  is  for 
the  unlearned,  while  he  says  it  is  medicine  for  the  sin- 
ner, it  is  not  out  of  the  sinners  and  the  unlearned  that 
the  great  Christian  Church  could  be  builded ;  and  he  goes 
on  to  say  that,  while  that  is  true,  and  there  is  medicine 
for  the  sinner,  the  Church  must  be  buttressed  by  the 
Gnostic,  not  by  the  sinner,  by  those  who  know,  not  by 
those  who  are  ignorant.  That  was  well  provided  for 
in  those  early  centuries  of  Christendom,  for  they  also 
had  their  Mysteries,  just  as  had  the  older  religions 
around  them.  Turn  over  the  pages  of  those  early  Chris- 
tian bishops  and  doctors  of  the  Church,  the  pages  of  S. 
Clement  of  Alexandria — canonised  as  saint  for  his  learn- 
ing and  his  holiness — turn  over  almost  any  of  the  pages 
you  will  of  those  earlier  Christian  teachers,  who  learned 
from  the  lips  of  those  who  had  received  their  teaching 
again  from  the  lips  of  the  followers  of  the  Christ  Him- 

lO 


146  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

self,  and  you  will  find  continual  references  to  the  Mys- 
teries of  Jesus.  You  will  find  the  rules  laid  down  by 
which  alone  admission  to  those  Mysteries  could  be  won ; 
you  will  read  in  the  pages  of  S.  Clement  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  hierophant  to  whom  the  candidates  presented 
themselves,  he  who  had  in  his  hands  the  key  of  that 
kingdom  of  heaven,  and  you  will  find  that  as  they  stood 
before  him  he  told  them  that  only  those  who  for  a 
long  time  had  been  conscious  of  no  transgression  might 
come  and  learn  the  teaching  which  Jesus  gave  secretly 
to  His  disciples.  Those  were  the  old  words  of  challenge 
ere  the  door  of  that  kingdom  of  heaven  was  flung  open, 
and  only  to  such  men  and  women  was  admission  to  the 
Mysteries  possible.  There  they  learned  the  inner  secret 
teachings,  those  that  are  indicated  in  the  Gospel  story; 
for  you  remember  how  it  was  written  of  the  Christ: 
"For  without  a  parable  spake  He  not  unto  them";  you 
remember  how,  when  the  disciples  asked  for  explana- 
tion. His  answer  was :  "To  you  it  is  given  to  know  the 
mysteries  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  but  to  others  in 
parables."  You  may  remember,  again,  how  it  was  said 
that  when  His  disciples  were  with  Him  in  the  house,  then 
He  told  them  things  which  to  the  multitude  without  He 
refused  to  reveal;  and  you  may  remember  the  further 
promise  that  He  left,  when  He  knew  that  His  own  earthly 
life  was  drawing  to  a  close :  "I  have  many  things  to  say 
to  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now."  The  Christian 
tradition  of  the  Mysteries  declared  that  those  many 
things  were  told  afterwards,  when  the  disciples  were 
more  ready  to  receive,  when  the  pupils  were  fitter  to  be 
taught.  Origen  tells  us  that  all  those  teachings  were  kept 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  I47 

in  the  Christian  Mysteries,  and  made  the  secret  teach- 
ings of  the  Church,  given  only  to  those  who  were  worthy. 
In  those  days  when  many  knew,  when  many  under- 
stood, a  distinction  was  drawn  between  Jesus  and  Christ. 
I  alluded  to  it,  you  remember,  in  the  first  of  this  course 
of  lectures ;  and  I  did  so  deliberately,  intending  to  re- 
turn to  it  when,  having  dealt  with  the  many  intermediate 
questions,  I  should  arrive  at  the  lecture  on  the  Coming 
Christ.  For  there  was  a  difference  between  the  human 
body  of  the  mighty  disciple  Jesus,  born  in  Bethlehem, 
and  the  divine  Power  that  came  down  upon  that  body 
at  the  point  of  time  marked  as  the  Baptism,  when  it  is 
written,  the  Spirit  of  God  came  down  upon  Him  and 
abode  with  Him;  there  you  have  marked  the  Coming 
of  the  Christ,  the  consecration  of  the  Supreme  Teacher. 
That  distinction  you  find  recognised  in  the  Epistles, 
though  no  attention  is  drawn  to  it  further  in  the  Gospels 
after  that  startling  and  suggestive  statement ;  but  if  you 
take  the  Pauline  epistles  you  find  yourself  in  quite  a 
different  atmosphere  from  that  of  the  history  as  told  in 
the  Gospels ;  you  find  there  the  name  of  Christ  in  a  new 
meaning,  a  mystical  meaning  of  profoundest  import; 
you  find  S.  Paul  declaring  that  he  does  not  ask  to 
know  Him  after  the  flesh,  it  is  the  inner  Christ  he  seeks ; 
you  find  him  saying  of  that  mystic  Christ  that  He  has  to 
be  born  in  the  believer — a  statement  that  could  never 
have  been  made  of  the  physical  body  of  Jesus.  You  find 
him  declaring  that  that  mystic  birth  of  the  Christ  in 
human  souls  is  to  be  followed  by  a  growth  of  the  mystic 
Christ  within  the  believer,  until  at  last  he  has  reached 
the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fulness  of  the  Christ. 


148  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

That  is  the  mystic  Christian  Hfe,  the  Christ  born  in  the 
soul,  unfolding  His  divine  powers  as  the  Christian  grows 
in  wisdom  and  in  love,  showing  Himself  more  and  more 
manifest  as  the  human  life  unfolds  to  the  divine,  until 
the  perfect  Christ  is  manifest  and  the  Son  of  God  is  seen 
again  on  earth.  But  that  old  mystical  idea  slipped  out 
of  the  Church  teachings,  and  only  remained  in  the 
Testament,  marked  but  not  understood.  And  so  He 
who  was  the  inspiring  Spirit,  the  Supreme  Teacher,  the 
all-pervading  life  of  His  Church,  became  the  outside 
Saviour,  who  by  a  physical  sacrifice  was  said  to  have 
made  atonement  between  God  and  man;  and  you  had  a 
vicarious  atonement,  a  legal  substitution,  instead  of  that 
identity  of  nature  which  made  the  Christ  and  the  be- 
liever one.  That  is  the  change  which  came  over  Chris- 
tian teaching  in  those  long  ages  of  darkness  that  fol- 
lowed the  vanishing  of  the  Mysteries  that  had  kept  the 
flame  of  knowledge  alive,  until  there  were  no  longer 
pupils  willing  to  be  taught,  and  by  the  absence  of  the 
pupils  the  teachings  of  the  Masters  were  withdrawn. 

So  we  realise  that  with  the  revival  in  our  own  days  of 
the  mystic  teaching  and  the  realisation  that  there  is  a 
life  in  Christianity  which  is  rightly  marked  out  by  that 
holiest  of  names,  we  begin  to  see  in  that  spreading  new 
life  in  Christian  churches,  in  the  revival  of  that  idea  of 
the  possibility  of  the  divine  growth  in  humanity,  we  see 
one  of  the  signs  of  the  coming  of  the  Christ,  preparatory 
to  His  next  manifestation  upon  earth.  For  it  would 
scarcely  have  been  worth  while  merely  to  amuse  you  for 
an  hour  with  the  story  of  the  past  if  it  did  not  bear  on 
the  present  and  the  future,  on  the  repetition  of  the  old- 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  149 

world  tale,  of  the  remanifestation  of  that  mighty  Son  of 
God.  For  that  reason,  to  make,  as  it  were,  the  gulf  less 
wide  between  the  ordinary  thought  and  the  thought  of 
the  Occultist,  I  spoke  about  the  earlier  manifestations, 
marking  each  successive  sub-race  of  man;  and  if  you 
have  followed  along  the  line  of  what  I  have  been  put- 
ting to  you  Sunday  after  Sunday  of  the  stage  at  which 
the  world  is  standing  now,  of  the  transition  age  in  which 
we  are,  of  the  closing  age  that  is  passing,  of  the  opening 
age  that  is  coming,  of  all  the  signs  which  show  the  end- 
ing of  the  one,  of  all  the  signs  which  show  the  begin- 
ning of  the  other,  then  without  shock  or  jar  should 
come  to  you  the  present  idea  that  we  may  well  be  look- 
ing again  for  a  manifestation  of  the  Teacher,  the  Su- 
preme Teacher  of  the  worlds,  who  was  last  manifest  as 
the  Christ  in  Palestine.  Let  us  see  what  that  would  mean. 
Unless  all  that  I  have  been  telling  you  during  the  past 
five  weeks  is  a  mere  dream;  unless  the  very  facts  that 
I  have  pointed  you  to  are  utterly  without  significance, 
you  ought  almost  to  have  thought  yourselves  into  the 
point  to  which  I  fain  would  lead  you  now — that  we  are 
on  the  threshold  of  a  new  manifestation,  and  that  the 
mighty  Teacher  again  will  appear  as  man  among  men. 
Now,  to  say  that  to  any  people  may  only  make  them 
think:  "But  why  for  us?"  So  might  the  Jew  have 
questioned  when  last  He  came  on  earth.  That  a  thing 
so  great,  so  transcendent,  and  so  rare,  should  come  to 
earth  at  any  particular  time,  to  be  measured  by  only  a 
few  years  of  mortal  time — that  that  should  be  now  seems 
too  strange,  too  beautiful,  to  be  true.  And  yet  He  came 
before;  why  not  again?  If  at  the  birth  of  the  fifth  sub- 


150  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

race,  why  not  at  the  birth  of  the  sixth?  Some  must  be 
on  earth  when  any  such  manifestation  takes  place ;  some 
generation  of  men  and  women  must  be  born  around  the 
coming  of  a  Christ;  and  there  is  no  vahd  reason  that 
any  one  of  you  can  give  why  this  age  should  not  be  such 
a  time,  and  the  people  of  this  age  the  recipients  of  the 
new  flood  of  spiritual  life.  Strange,  because  it  happens 
seldom,  but  sure,  because  it  happened  at  similar  crises 
in  the  story  of  the  world ;  and  the  strangeness  of  it  does 
not  mark  it  as  untrue  when  you  see  the  signs  of  the 
coming  all  around  you,  if  your  eyes  should  be  open  to 
recognise  what  they  mean.  For  an  expectation  is 
spreading  everywhere  of  the  coming  of  some  mighty 
Teacher,  and  here  and  there  on  earth  the  expectation 
has  taken  voice,  nay,  has  even  had  a  human  messenger 
and  herald  to  proclaim  it.  In  Persia  such  a  messenger 
came  in  the  one  who  was  called  the  Bab,  who  declared 
the  coming  of  a  mighty  one,  followed  by  another  said 
to  be  yet  greater  than  himself,  and  yet  a  third,  the  Abbas 
Eflfendi  of  the  present  time,  certainly  a  great  spiritual 
teacher,  but  one  who  still  declares  that  the  mightiest  is 
yet  to  come,  who  is  to  bind  together  the  eastern  and  the 
western  worlds. 

Not  only  along  that  line  has  this  expectation  shown 
itself,  but  among  the  people  of  Islam  in  a  strange  com- 
bative form,  natural  to  their  fighting  races,  showing 
itself,  therefore,  as  leader  in  battle  to  be  ruler  in  the 
future ;  and  through  Africa  you  see  it  in  this  expectation 
of  the  Mahdi,  which  has  given  so  much  trouble  during 
our  own  time. 

I  only  mention  these  to  show  you  that  the  thought  is 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  I5I 

spreading  and  the  expectation  growing;  for  ever  the 
world  grows  expectant  before  the  mighty  One  returns  to 
reveal  Himself  on  earth.  Such  a  coming  of  the  Christ 
the  occult  world  is  looking  for — for  the  same  great  Be- 
ing who  appeared  in  Palestine,  for  He  is  still  the  Su- 
preme Teacher,  the  same  individual.  Who  may  say 
what  name  He  will  bear?  But  what  is  of  import  to  all 
of  us  is:  Shall  we  recognise  Him  when  He  comes,  or 
shall  we  be  as  blind  of  vision,  as  hard  of  heart,  as  were 
the  Jews  among  whom  His  last  manifestation  occurred  ? 
It  is  so  easy  for  us  looking  back  through  the  glamour  of 
the  centuries  in  which  the  great  Christian  Master  has 
been  the  head  of  Christendom,  and  seen  as  perfect  man 
wath  the  irradiation  also  of  the  Christ  upon  Him — for 
the  Church  has  made  no  distinction  between  the  two  all 
these  later  years — it  is  so  easy  for  us  to  look  back 
through  all  those  centuries  and  say  we  should  have 
know  Him  had  we  been  there.  But  that  has  happened 
so  often.  Was  it  not  His  reproach  to  the  people  of  His 
day:  "Your  fathers  slew  the  prophets,  and  ye  build 
their  sepulchres"?  There  are  always  plenty  of  people 
ready  to  rear  the  sepulchre  of  honour  to  the  name  of 
the  prophet  of  the  past;  how  few  in  any  age  of  the 
world  have  recognised  the  prophet  of  their  own  day! 
That  is  not  only  true  of  the  Supreme  Teacher,  but  of 
others  a  little  beyond  the  knowledge  and  the  power  of 
their  own  day;  ever  they  have  been  met  with  hatred, 
ever  the  world  has  cast  them  out,  has  tortured  or  has 
slain  them.  Why  should  we  in  our  own  day,  then,  be 
any  wiser?  Why  should  the  fifth  sub-race,  the  most 
combative  of  all  the  nations,  the  most  critical,  the  most 


152  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

sceptical,  the  most  unwilling  to  recognise  the  higher,  the 
most  self-assertive — why  should  we  have  eyes  open  to 
see  a  greatness  that  has  never  been  recognised  in  the 
past?  That  is  the  problem  that  may  well  exercise  our 
minds,  in  order  that  we  may  try  to  develop  in  ourselves 
the  power  to  recognise  should  He  come  in  our  own  day. 
For  one  great  rule  runs  all  through  nature:  that  you 
can  only  recognise  that  to  which  you  can  respond.  It  is 
true  of  the  outer  nature  and  our  physical  eyes.  We 
can  only  see  each  other  because  in  the  retina  of  the  eye 
there  is  the  ether  that  answers  to  the  external  waves  of 
light.  Similarly  in  moral  characteristics,  and,  above  all, 
in  the  spiritual  nature,  we  can  only  recognise  in  propor- 
tion as  we  reproduce.  If  in  ourselves  there  is  some 
opening  up  of  the  spiritual  nature,  if  in  ourselves  there 
are  some  of  the  qualities  which  shine  out  so  gloriously 
in  Him,  if  in  us  there  is  some  touch  of  that  nature  which 
in  Him  has  risen  to  divinity,  ah !  then  it  is  possible  that 
we  may  throb  responsive  to  Him  when  He  comes,  hid- 
den, as  He  ever  has  been,  beneath  the  veil  of  flesh.  But 
that  that  may  be  so  we  must  go  outside  the  thought  of 
our  time  to  that  of  the  time  that  is  coming ;  not  the  com- 
bativeness  of  the  fifth,  but  the  compassion  of  the  sixth 
sub-race  must  find  its  home  in  our  hearts.  And  if  one 
may  judge  from  the  past,  when  He  comes  He  may 
again  be  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  for  the  spiritual 
ideal  is  not  an  ideal  to  which  the  heart  of  our  own  age 
quickly  responds.  You  can  see  it  in  the  characteristics  of 
the  Christ :  "when  He  was  reviled  He  reviled  not  again ; 
when  He  suffered  He  threatened  not."  But  amongst  you 
that  would  show  great  poverty  of  spirit.    Not  to  revile 


THE  COMING  CHRIST  153 

back  when  you  are  reviled,  in  the  mind  of  the  modern 
day,  is  to  mark  the  reviling  as  true.  That  is  the  spirit  of 
the  time.  If  you  are  slandered,  libelled,  abused,  go  into 
court  and  drag  the  slanderer  there ;  if  not,  you  are  guilty. 
That  is  the  common  opinion  of  the  time.  One  who  has 
learned  the  lesson  of  the  Christ,  who  before  His  accusers 
answered  nothing,  that  man  is  condemned  by  the  popular 
mind  of  the  day.  He  would  answer  if  he  could,  because 
they  would  answer  if  they  could ;  but  the  measure  of  the 
Christ  is  not  the  measure  of  those  who  bear  His  name 
in  the  combative  civilisation  of  the  time.  And  so  when 
He  comes  again,  reviled  and  slandered  as  He  must  be  if 
He  be  far  beyond  our  knowledge  and  our  understanding, 
the  common  verdict  will  go  against  Him  as  it  went 
against  Him  before.  We  may  not  murder;  that  is  too 
merciful  in  these  modern  days.  We  prefer  rather  that 
the  victim  shall  live  to  be  tortured  than  to  give  him  the 
mercy  of  a  sl^ft,  a  ready  death. 

And  so,  looking  over  the  world  at  the  moment,  there 
seems  little  likelihood  that  when  He  comes  He  will  be 
welcome.  A  few  will  recognise  Him  as  they  ever  have 
done,  and  maybe,  as  the  characteristics  of  the  coming 
race  are  those  of  spirituality,  there  will  be  more  to  wel- 
come Him,  for  the  spiritual  life  is  spreading  to-day,  and 
those  who  are  of  the  Spirit  will  know  the  law  of  the 
Spirit ;  and  I  would  fain  leave  you  with  the  thought  to- 
night that  that  is  a  truth,  that  the  Supreme  Teacher  will 
again  ere  very  long  be  incarnate  upon  earth,  again  made 
manifest  as  Teacher,  again  walking  and  living  amongst 
us  as  last  He  walked  in  Palestine.  Splendid  as  is  the 
hope,  mighty  as  is  the  inspiration,  there  is  nothing  too 


154  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

glorious  to  be  possible  for  the  ever-unfolding  Spirit  in 
man,  and  the  hope  of  to-day  is  that  that  spirit  is  spread- 
ing, despite  the  characteristics  of  our  time;  that  men 
are  becoming  more  liberal,  more  tolerant,  more  ready  to 
recognise  that  which  is  true  and  just.  And  it  may  well 
be  that  we  have  reached  such  a  time  of  evolution  that 
the  popular  mind  of  the  day  will  be  transcended  by  large 
numbers  of  the  more  spiritually  minded,  and  that  when 
He  comes  again  He  will  be  able  to  stay  amongst  us  more 
than  the  three  brief  years  that  marked  His  last  minis- 
try. That,  then,  is  the  word,  the  thought  I  leave  with 
you:  to  develop  in  yourselves  the  Spirit  of  the  Qirist, 
and  then  at  His  coming  you  shall  recognise  His  beauty. 
Learn  compassion,  learn  tenderness,  learn  good  thoughts 
of  others  rather  than  evil,  learn  to  be  tender  with  the 
weak,  learn  to  be  reverent  to  the  great ;  and  if  you  can 
develop  those  qualities  in  you,  then  the  coming  Qirist 
may  be  able  to  number  you  among  His  disciples,  and  the 
welcome  that  the  earth  shall  give  Him  shall  not  again 
be  a  cross. 


Lecture  VII 

The   Larger  Consciousness  and 
its  Value 

Friends:  During  the  whole  of  the  lectures,  of  which 
the  discourse  of  to-night  is  the  last,  I  have  taken  for 
granted  the  existence  of  a  larger  consciousness  in  man 
than  that  which  we  know  at  the  present  time  as  our 
physical  or  waking  consciousness.  Over  and  over  again 
I  have  had  occasion  to  allude  to  it,  once  or  twice  I  dwelt 
for  a  few  moments  upon  it,  but  I  could  not  interrupt  the 
course  of  what  I  had  been  putting  to  you  by  any  detailed 
description  of  the  larger  consciousness,  or  of  the  instru- 
ments of  that  consciousness,  the  body  or  bodies  of  man. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  the  work  I  had  been  trying  to  do 
would  remain  somewhat  imperfect  unless  I  tried  to  place 
before  you,  ere  quitting  the  subjects  I  had  been  dealing 
with,  something  with  regard  to  this  larger  consciousness 
in  man ;  a  consciousness  which  exists  in  every  one  of  us. 
which  functions  intermittently  in  all  of  us;  which  is  in 
course  of  unfolding  in  humanity  at  the  present  time. 
And  side  by  side  with  the  unfolding  of  the  consciousness 
there  goes  a  continual  evolution  of  the  bodies  in  which 
that  consciousness  expresses  itself,  and  it  is  that  subject 
that  I  want  to  deal  with  to-night,  trying  to  put  before 

155 


156  THE  CHANGINO  WORLD 

you  clearly  and  definitely  the  theory  which  is  studied  by 
Theosophists  with  regard  to  this  matter,  a  theory  which 
some  of  us  have  proved  to  be  true  by  our  own  investiga- 
tions, and — which  is  a  far  more  important  thing — con- 
firmed by  the  great  Scriptures  of  the  world's  religions, 
the  testimony  which  has  been  given  to  man  by  seers,  by 
prophets  of  the  highest,  the  most  inspired,  order.  Some- 
times we  are  inclined  to  lay  more  stress  on  contemporary 
evidence  than  on  the  evidence  that  comes  from  the  great 
Scriptures  of  the  world.  It  seems  to  me  as  though  that 
were  a  little  along  the  line  of  hiding  the  sun  by  holding  a 
plate  quite  close  to  the  eyes.  For  it  is  quite  clear,  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it,  that  testimony  which  may  be 
given  nowadays  by  half -developed  students  cannot  in  the 
nature  of  things  be  nearly  as  valuable  as  that  of  the 
great  prophets  and  seers  of  humanity,  embodied,  how- 
ever mystically  and  allegorically,  in  the  great  Bibles  of 
humanity.  In  fact,  the  testimony  of  the  modern-day 
investigator  should  be  checked  and  governed  by  those 
mightier  and  wider  revelations,  and  it  is  always  a  point 
of  satisfaction,  a  point  of  confirmation  to  the  modern  and 
partially  developed  seer  when  he  finds  that  his  own 
investigations  throw  light  on  some  of  the  statements  of 
these  Scriptures,  and  that  the  Bibles  of  the  race  become 
more  illuminating  in  some  of  their  obscurer  passages  by 
the  light  that  he  may  have  been  able  to  gain  by  his  own 
investigations.  I  am  not,  then,  pretending  for  one  mo- 
ment that  anything  I  put  to  you  now  is  comparable  in 
value  with  what  you  might  find  out  for  yourselves,  if 
spirtually  illuminated,  in  these  great  Bibles  of  religions. 
But  I  do  think  that  the  investigations  of  to-day  help  us 


THE  LARGER   CONSCIOUSNESS   AND  ITS  VALUE      1 57 

to  understand  those  great  revelations,  though  much  that 
is  there  said  is  necessarily  obscure  to  us  because  of  the 
immense  difference  in  knowledge  between  the  speaker 
and  the  student;  therefore,  though  we  may  call  our 
knowledge  to-day  a  farthing  light,  it  may  be  of  value  in 
the  deciphering  of  these  great  manuscripts  of  the  past, 
so  that  even  a  little  knowledge  of  our  own  may  enable  us 
to  go  more  deeply  into  those  great  wells  of  truth  which 
have  come  down  to  us  from  antiquity,  which  have  been 
given  to  us  by  the  Saviours  of  the  world. 

In  order  to  make  what  I  have  to  say  clear  to  you,  I 
shall  have  to  ask  you  to  pardon  me  if  I  go  in  the  be- 
ginning a  little  into  definition  and  detail.  If  you  want  to 
study  your  own  body,  comparatively  simple  as  that  is, 
you  must  be  willing  to  learn  the  difference  between  a 
bone  and  a  nerve,  between  an  artery  and  a  vein,  and  so 
on  through  the  whole  of  the  more  or  less  familiar  terms 
which  the  physiologist  uses  in  explaining  the  anatomy 
and  the  physiology  of  the  body.  No  person  can  have 
clear  and  definite  ideas  if  he  is  not  willing  to  study  the 
mere  nomenclature  of  that  which  he  wishes  to  under- 
stand ;  and  while  it  is  quite  possible  to  avoid  using  words 
of  other  languages,  it  is  not  possible  to  avoid  some  de- 
mand on  the  consecutive  thought-power  of  the  student 
if  he  desires  to  be  anything  more  than  a  mere  superficial 
hearer,  without  any  definite  understanding  of  the  sub- 
jects which  he  supposes  himself  to  be  studying.  There  is 
a  very  good  and  simple  description  of  man's  constitution 
in  one  of  the  Pauline  epistles,  where  a  triple  division  is 
given,  and  a  perfectly  accurate  division,  although  sub- 
divisions again  are  possible  and  practicable ;  but  for  my 


158  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

purposes  now  that  division  into  three,  and  then  certain 
subdivisions  of  each,  will  be  sufficient  to  give  you  a  very 
clear  and  definite  idea  of  consciousness  in  man ;  and  then 
by  your  own  experience  you  can  decide  how  much  of  the 
larger  consciousness  comes  into  your  waking  conscious- 
ness, or  how  much  of  you  is  still  without  vehicle  of 
expression,  still  without  the  power  of  manifesting  in 
worlds  related  to  our  own. 

That  division,  as  all  of  you  will  at  once  know,  is  Spirit, 
Soul,  Body.  It  is  curious  how  indefinite  the  mass  of 
Christian  people  are  with  regard  to  the  meaning  of  the 
first  two  terms.  Spirit  and  Soul.  I  am  not  quarreling 
with  the  fact  that  different  definitions  may  sometimes 
be  given;  I  am  quarrelling  with  the  fact  that  most 
Christians  have  no  definition  at  all;  that  they  use  the 
words  interchangeably ;  that  they  constantly  talk  of  man 
as  a  duality,  always  using  the  word  body;  sometimes 
using  the  word  Spirit,  and  sometimes  soul,  for  all  that 
which  they  exclude  from  the  body.  Thus  you  hear 
people  talking  about  spirits  manifesting  in  various  ways ; 
sometimes  you  hear  about  the  human  soul  and  its  im- 
mortality, and  so  on.  But  a  clear,  distinct  definition  of 
what  is  Spirit,  what  is  soul — that  for  the  most  part  is 
wanting  among  even  the  students  of  theology.  Let  us 
see  if  it  be  not  possible  to  define  them  in  a  way  which 
may  at  least  be  clear.  You  may,  of  course,  differ  with 
the  division  for  the  reason  that  you  may  think  some 
other  dividing  line  is  better ;  I  am  concerned  chiefly,  for 
the  moment,  with  giving  you  a  clear  definition,  and  then 
you  may  correct  or  amend  it  according  to  your  own 
thought  or  your  own  knowledge.     The  definition  will,  of 


THE   LARGER   CONSCIOUSNESS  AND   ITS  VALUE      1 59 

course,  govern  me  in  all  that  I  say  to-night.  First  of 
all,  then :  What  is  Spirit  ?  Spirit  is  a  germ  of  Divinity 
unfolding  itself  gradually  in  human  evolution,  appropri- 
ating certain  kinds  of  matter  which  it  gradually  organises 
into  an  instrument  for  self-expression — we  may  shorten 
that  by  saying  a  germ  of  Divinity  encased  in  matter. 
That  germ  of  Divinity,  as  you  might  naturally  expect, 
shows  out  in  itself  the  triple  division  of  its  Divine  parent. 
Just  as  you  find  God,  manifesting  in  a  universe,  ever 
manifesting  three  supreme  attributes,  sometimes  personi- 
fied into  what  is  called  a  Trinity,  so  you  would  naturally 
expect  to  find  in  the  germ  that  which  you  find  in  the 
parent — that  the  triple  nature  of  Divinity  should  show 
itself  out  in  the  triple  nature  of  the  Spirit  which  is  man. 
And  that  is  so.  You  find  Spirit  showing  itself  forth  in 
full  Divinity,  taking  for  a  moment  the  Christian  names 
as  most  familiar,  in  the  form  of  Power  in  the  Father,  in 
the  form  of  Wisdom  in  the  Son,  in  the  form  of  creative 
Activity  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  If  you  will  take  those 
names  for  the  time  as  being  most  familiar  to  your  own 
thought,  and  therefore  introducing  nothing  of  difficulty 
to  you — if  you  will  remember  those  accepted  ideas  for 
the  time,  and  translate  them  into  terms  of  consciousness, 
limited,  because  these  are  not  all  fully  unfolded  in  man, 
you  will  be  able  readily  to  distinguish  in  man's  spiritual 
nature,  and  even  more  distinctly  for  the  moment  in  the 
lower  reflexion  of  that  with  which  I  will  deal  presently 
— ^you  will  be  able  to  distinguish  the  threefold  division, 
and  so  to  obtain,  as  it  were,  a  clear  picture  of  your  own 
spirtual  nature.  That  which  in  Divinity  we  call  Power, 
the  Will  by  which  the  worlds  exist,  shows  itself  out  in 


l6o  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

our  own  spirtiual  nature  as  Will.  The  Wisdom  which 
upholds  the  worlds  shows  itself  out  in  the  human  Spirit 
also  as  the  pure  and  compassionate  Reason,  which  is 
the  Wisdom,  the  Christ,  in  man.  The  third,  creative 
Activity,  shows  itself  in  intellect,  the  highest,  the  noblest 
form  of  creative  Activity — the  intellect,  the  pure  intellect 
in  man  is  the  third  reflexion  in  man  of  the  creative 
Activity  of  God.  And  if  you  link  what  may  be  less 
familiar  with  the  familiar,  it  will  be  very  easy  for  you  to 
keep  the  thread  of  that  which  I  desire  to  put  before  you. 
Think  first  of  all,  then,  that  the  Spirit,  the  germ  of 
Divinity  in  man,  has  to  show  out  in  the  gradual  unfold- 
ing of  its  hidden  powers  these  three  supreme  attributes 
with  which  you  are  familiar  in  the  thought  of  Divinity 
itself. 

Then,  passing  from  that  highest  part  of  our  nature  to 
what  S.  Paul  calls  the  soul,  what  is  the  Soul  in  relation 
to  the  Spirit?  It  is  the  temporary  reflexion  in  grosser 
matter  of  the  eternal  Spirit ;  the  image  of  that  which  is 
the  eternal  object;  the  reflexion  in  the  mirror  of  a  world 
of  that  eternal  life  which  passes  from  world  to  world, 
unfolding,  but  is  never  subject  to  the  transitoriness  which 
marks  the  ever-changing  worlds.  The  soul  in  man  is 
the  Spirit  working  in  grosser  matter;  and  hence  in  our 
own  natures,  so  familiar  to  us — for  now  we  come  into  a 
region  that  psychological  science  deals  with  and  tries  to 
define  and  understand — we  have,  when  we  look  at  our 
own  consciousness,  the  soul,  the  reflexion  of  the  Spirit  in 
grosser  matter.  We  have  the  mind  reflecting  the  pure 
intellect  with  all  its  activities — imagination,  judgment, 
reason — all  these  powers  of  the  mind.     Then  we  find  a 


THE   LARGER  CONSCIOUSNESS  AND   ITS   VALUE      l6l 

part  of  our  nature  that  we  call  the  emotional ;  there  we 
have  the  reflexion  of  that  pure  and  compassionate  Wis- 
dom that  I  spoke  of  which  shows  itself  in  the  lower 
worlds  by  Love,  the  highest  and  loftiest  of  the  emotions, 
the  root  whence  all  virtues  spring.  For  the  same  prin- 
ciple of  unity  which  expresses  itself  as  Wisdom  in  the 
spiritual  world  expresses  itself  as  Love,  which  draws  the 
separated  lives  together  in  the  world  where  matter  has 
overcome  Spirit,  where  Spirit  is  blinded  by  matter.  The 
unity  that  the  Spirit  knows  the  soul  seeks  by  Love,  which 
is  the  attribute  that  draws  toward  unity,  and  that  which 
in  the  spiritual  world  is  known,  in  the  lower  world  is 
sought  by  this  exquisite  attribute  of  the  soul.  And  that 
which  in  the  higher  world  we  call  Will  becomes  Desire 
in  the  lower.  For  the  difference  between  Will  and  De- 
sire is  that  Will  is  self-determined,  whereas  Desire  is 
determined  by  the  attractiveness  of  objects  outside  the 
consciousness.  You  are  moved  by  Desire  when  some 
pleasure  attracts  you,  some  pain  repels  you,  when  your 
activity  goes  along  the  road  that  is  determined  by  an 
outer  attraction,  an  outer  repulsion ;  you  are  moved  by 
Will,  the  spirtiual  attribute,  when  the  whole  of  your 
inner  nature,  drawn  up  to  a  single  point,  self-determined, 
sends  that  nature  along  the  road  that  within  yourself  you 
have  chosen,  whether  it  leads  to  pleasure  or  pain, 
whether  it  leads  to  gain  or  loss  in  the  lower  world.  Will 
is  determined  from  the  spirtual  Self;  Desire  is  guided 
and  stimulated  by  objects  in  the  lower  world.  Hence 
that  which  is  Will  in  the  Spirit  is  Desire  in  the  soul. 
And  so  you  find  the  soul  represented  by  these  three  well- 
known  attributes:  Mind,  with  all  its  powers;  Emotion, 

II 


l62  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  root  emotion  being  love ;  Desire,  the  reflexion  of  the 
determining  power  in  this  lower  world. 

When  you  come  down  into  everyday  life  you  find  the 
whole  of  these  make  up  your  waking  conscoiusness, 
showing  itself  out  in  the  denser  matter  of  the  brain ;  in 
your  waking  consciousness  you  know  the  working  of  the 
mind;  in  your  waking  consciousness  you  know  the 
working  of  the  emotions ;  in  your  waking  consciousness 
you  know  the  working  of  desire ;  so  that  the  waking  con- 
sciousness, the  limited,  the  conditioned,  the  smaller 
consciousness,  is  that  which  is  within  the  limitations  of 
your  brain  or  physical  body,  but  is  none  other  than  the 
larger  consciousness  which  shows  itself  in  the  subtler 
worlds  as  soul,  in  the  spiritual  world  as  Spirit.  If  you 
realise  clearly  that  outlining,  with  its  subdivisions,  you 
will  find  that  consciousness  is  a  unit,  and  the  differences 
are  differences  of  the  material  in  which  it  is  working 
rather  than  in  itself.  The  triple  division  is  the  only  one, 
whether  you  look  at  it  in  the  brain,  in  the  subtle  body,  in 
the  matter  of  the  world  where  the  Spirit  rules.  Every- 
where consciosuness  is  one,  expressing  itself  in  three 
modes,  by  three  qualities,  but  everywhere  a  unit,  your- 
self, the  reality  within  you. 

What  is  Body?  For  there  is  a  third  factor  in  S. 
PauFs  definition  of  man.  Naturally  the  body  also  has 
in  it  the  same  triple  differentiation  as  the  consciousness. 
And  so  we  find  a  sipirtual  body,  the  clothing  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  highest  worlds  of  consciousness.  We  find 
also  what  S.  Paul,  again,  calls  a  natural  body.  There  is 
a  natural  body,  he  says,  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body. 
But  that  natural  body  divides  itself  into  two — the  subtle 


THE  LARGER   CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  ITS  VALUE      1 63 

body  in  which  the  soul  is  working;  the  dense  body  in 
which  the  waking  consciousness  is  working,  the  reflexion 
of  the  highest.  Those  two  naturally  go  together,  and 
might  well  be  classed  roughly  as  the  single  natural  body, 
for  it  is  transitory,  impermanent,  belongs  to  the  three 
worlds  of  change — ^the  physical  world,  the  intermediate, 
and  the  heavenly;  has  a  certain  life  through  which  it 
passes  in  the  three  worlds,  and  then  gives  back  its 
elements  to  the  worlds  to  which  they  respectively  belong. 
Whereas  the  spiritual  body  is  a  relatively  permanent 
thing,  lasts  through  the  whole  of  the  long  life  of  the 
individual,  passes  through  birth  after  birth,  death  after 
death,  knows  neither  birth  nor  death  in  its  own  nature, 
passes  through  them,  but  is  not  affected  by  them — ^the 
spiritual  individuality,  the  real  man,  is  eternal  in  his  own 
nature,  and  has  a  permanent  clothing  of  the  matter  of 
the  spiritual  world,  unfolding  his  powers,  organising  his 
matter,  but  remaining  ever  the  same  in  essence,  the 
consciousness  ever  living  in  those  worlds,  the  matter  the 
same,  only  becoming  more  and  more  definitely  organ- 
ised. In  that  spiritual  body  remains  the  memory  of  all 
the  experiences  through  which  you  have  passed ;  in  that 
spiritual  body  resides  your  true  individuality,  that  knows 
neither  birth  nor  death ;  in  that  spiritual  body  which  is 
ever  yours  all  the  experiences  of  the  past  are  gathered 
up,  and  part  of  those  experiences  is  put  forth,  birth  after 
birth,  in  order  that  the  soul  may  clothe  itself  in  new 
bodies  for  new  experiences  and  new  developments.  So 
that  the  part  of  you  that  lasts  is  the  Spirit  in  the  spiritual 
body ;  the  part  of  you  that  changes,  the  soul  in  the  tem- 
porary body,  whether  you  take  the  subtler  or  the  denser 
parts. 


164  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Supposing  you  accept  that  definition  of  man  in  his 
triple  division,  it  will  be  easy  enough  then  to  follow  out 
step  by  step  what  the  higher  consciousness  is  as  apart 
from  the  lower,  the  larger  as  apart  from  the  smaller. 
You  will  start  with  the  great  conception  of  a  living  Spirit 
coming  down  into  denser  and  denser  matter,  with  the 
object  of  acquiring  that  matter  and  subduing  it  to  his 
own  purposes,  appropriating  it,  wrapping  himself  up  in 
it,  and  temporarily  blinded  by  the  veil,  but  a  veil  that  he 
is  going  to  turn  into  an  instrument,  so  that  by  it  he  may 
know  all  the  worlds,  and  come  into  contact  with  every 
portion  of  the  universe.  For  that  he  appropriates  the 
matter  of  every  world ;  for  that  he  wraps  himself  round 
in  these  material  garments ;  and  working  upon  these,  he 
turns  them  to  his  own  purposes,  shapes  them  by  his  own 
will,  moulds  them  in  order  that  he  may  use  them  for 
that  which  he  desires  to  effect — contact  with  matter,  the 
condition  of  his  becoming  master  of  the  worlds ;  and  by 
making  matter  his  servant  and  his  instrument,  all  the 
worlds  become  open  before  him,  and  he  can  function  in 
any  one  of  them.  That  the  pure  spiritual  being  cannot 
do.  He  can  only  function  in  worlds  of  the  Spirit,  those 
lofty  eternal  regions  where  Divinity  itself  resides  and 
manifests  without  the  blinding  effect  of  the  denser  matter 
that  we  wear.  But  just  as  Divinity  emanates  these 
coarser  forms  of  matter  in  order  that  the  spiritual  germs 
may  be  sown  therein,  and  therein  gain  the  experience  by 
which  their  powers  will  be  unfolded  from  within ;  just  as 
Deity  is  manifest  in  matter,  so  must  the  germs  of  Deity 
grow  therein,  until  matter  is  subject  to  them  as  it  is  to 
the  Father  of  light,  whence  they  come. 


THE    LARGER    CONSCIOUSNESS    AND    ITS    VALUE      165 

So,  in  looking  at  this  consciousness  unfolding  and  these 
bodies  becoming  organised,  we  can  trace  throughout  the 
purpose  of  that  long  unfolding — to  make  the  Spirit 
master  of  matter,  to  enable  him  to  act  in  every  world; 
and  when  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  great  purpose,  we 
realise  how  perfect  is  the  plan,  how  complete  our  triumph 
will  be.  First  we  notice,  when  we  are  looking  at  the 
lower  forms  of  consciousness  in  ourselves,  that  we  can 
understand  a  certain  relation  between  matter  and  Spirit 
which  we  are  told  exists  all  the  way  up  to  the  highest 
spiritual  world.  And  so  far  as  investigation  has  been 
carried  by  the  students  of  to-day,  they  find  that  re- 
lation in  each  successive  world  that  they  enter  and 
finally  subdue.  It  is  a  relation,  then,  that  runs  right 
through  between  consciousness  and  form,  between  Spirit 
and  matter;  it  is  this:  that  every  change  in  conscious- 
ness has  a  corresponding  vibration  in  matter,  and  that 
every  vibration  in  matter  has  a  corresponding  change  in 
consciousness.  We  are  told  that  that  relation  is  imposed 
by  the  Logos  Himself  in  His  first  shaping  of  the  matter 
side  of  His  universe ;  that  all  the  vibrations  of  which  He 
makes  the  atoms  capable  answer  one  by  one  to  changes 
in  His  own  consciousness,  and  that  throughout  the  whole 
of  His  universe,  in  all  the  mighty  realm  of  spirit-matter 
that  He  rules,  this  correspondence  is  universally,  un- 
changeably found — for  every  change  in  consciousness  a 
corresponding  change  in  vibration,  for  every  change  in 
vibration  a  corresponding  change  in  consciousness. 

Let  us  see  how  that  would  work  if  anyone  whose  eyes 
are  a  little  opened  looks  at  the  aura  of  a  person — the 
lowest  part  of  that  aura,  if  you  will,  in  etheric  or  astral 


l66  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

matter :  let  us  say,  astral.  You  will  notice  a  large  num- 
ber of  colours  continually  flashing  through  it  and  chang- 
ing; and  if  you  examine  those  colours,  every  one,  as  you 
know  from  your  ordinary  study,  representing  a  certain 
definite  vibration  in  matter — every  colour  is  nothing 
more  than  a  certain  vibration  in  matter,  a  vibration 
with  a  definite  wave-length — if  you  watch  those  changing 
colours  in  the  aura  you  will  find  that  they  are  either 
generated  by  a  state  of  consciousness  or  give  rise  to  it. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  you  find  a  person  in  a  mood  of 
devotion,  engaged  perhaps  in  prayer — ^you  can  see  them 
by  the  score  in  any  Christian  church.  Watch  the  astral 
aura  of  that  person,  and  you  will  find  that  the  whole  of 
it  is  vibrating  in  a  way  that  gives  you  the  colour  of 
blue,  blue  everywhere  predominating,  the  whole  of  the 
aura  sufifused  with  that  colour.  But  you  will  also  find, 
if  there  is  in  that  congregation  a  quiet  person  who 
was  not  feeling  devotional  when  he  came  into  that  con- 
gregation, that  gradually  his  astral  body  will  be  affected 
by  the  vibrations  in  the  astral  bodies  near  him,  and 
that  those  vibrations  imposed  upon  him  from  without 
will  produce  a  devotional  mood  within  him.  You  can 
start  it,  then,  at  either  end :  either  the  mood  producing 
the  appearance,  the  vibration,  or  the  vibration  produc- 
ing the  mood.  Take  it  in  another  form :  have  you  never 
felt  when  you  yourself  were  perfectly  good-tempered 
and  some  very  irritable  person  came  up  to  you,  have 
you  never  felt  that  you  yourself  were  becoming  irri- 
table ? — not  that  you  had  anything  to  be  irritable  about, 
but  merely  because  the  other  man  was,  and  it  needs 
considerable  control^  control  over  the  astral  body,  to 


THE  LARGER  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND  ITS   VALUE      167 

prevent  the  irritation  of  the  person  who  comes  near 
you  from  affecting  your  own  previously  placid  mood. 
If  you  have  not  observed  this,  keep  watch  over  yourself 
during  the  coming  week,  and  you  will  find  how  continu- 
ally you  reproduce  the  emotions  of  the  people  with  whom 
you  come  into  contact.  What  is  the  mechanism  of  it? 
Very  simple.  That  person's  astral  body  is  vibrating  in 
consonance  with  the  emotion  he  is  feeling.  Those  vibra- 
tions of  his  astral  body  set  up  vibrations  in  your  astral 
body,  a  perfectly  mechanical  thing.  But  because  it  is 
your  astral  body,  the  matter  you  have  appropriated, 
those  vibrations  in  it  produce  in  you  the  corresponding 
mood  of  irritation.  Hence  the  common  ethical  precept 
given  by  every  great  teacher,  to  return  good  for  evil. 
That  is  by  a  deliberate  effort  of  the  consciousness  to 
throw  yourself  into  the  mood  which  is  opposite  to  the 
evil  mood  of  the  person  with  whom  you  come  into  con- 
tact. If  you  do  that,  then  your  own  mood  will  overbear 
in  your  astral  body  the  vibrations  imposed  upon  it  from 
without,  and  your  astral  body  will  begin  to  vibrate  in 
correspondence  with  your  own  good  emotion  instead  of 
with  the  evil  emotion  imposed  from  outside.  The  fur- 
ther result  of  that,  if  you  be  strong  enough,  will  be  to 
correct  the  bad  vibration  in  the  astral  body  of  the  man 
who  is  near  you,  and  so,  by  correcting  that  vibration 
into  harmony  with  your  own,  to  produce  in  him  your 
own  good  emotion,  instead  of  having  your  emotion  con- 
trolled by  his.  That  is  the  ordinary  science  of  the  emo- 
tions that  every  aspirant  for  the  higher  life  is  set  to 
practise  in  his  daily  life.  He  is  first  told  the  theory, 
so  that  he  may  understand  what  he  is  doing,  and  then 


l68  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

he  is  set  to  the  practise,  so  that  by  the  practise  he  may 
reahse  the  truth  of  the  law  that  his  teacher  has  ex- 
plained. Sometimes  the  ethical  teacher  only  says :  "Love 
your  enemies,  do  good  to  them  that  hate  you."  With 
the  unspiritual  hearer  the  question  will  very  readily 
arise,  "Why  should  I  give  love  when  hatred  is  given  to 
me?"  Only  knowledge  will  enable  you  to  understand 
the  wisdom  that  underlies  this  precept  of  all  the  great 
teachers  of  the  past.  Speaking  in  an  age  when  authority 
was  valid,  and  when  people  were  willing  to  accept  the 
precept  from  one  whom  they  recognised  as  greater  than 
themselves,  they  only  proclaimed  the  law,  and  the  docile 
hearer  tried  to  obey.  In  our  own  more  critical  and 
combative  age  it  is  necessary  to  justify  wisdom  to  a 
more  critical  and  carping  generation,  and  so  the  full 
explanation  is  given  which  shows  you  the  scientific  truth 
which  underlies  the  ethical  precept. 

That  runs  through  the  whole  of  the  working  of  our 
bodies,  the  whole  of  the  changes  in  our  consciousness. 
You  can  work  it  out  step  by  step,  or  you  can  read  the 
working  out  which  has  been  made  by  a  thoughtful  stu- 
dent,^  and  so  you  will  have  a  veritable  science  of  the 
emotions,  and  you  will  go  out  into  the  world  a  source 
of  peace,  a  source  of  blessing,  a  source  of  all  good 
emotions,  helping  the  weaker  by  your  own  knowledge 
and  your  own  strength,  and  so  enabling  them  to  climb 
more  quickly  by  giving  this  helping  hand  out  of  the 
knowledge  that  you  have  learned. 

By  that  fact,  then,  we  have  power  over  matter,  we  can 

*  See  The  Science  of  the  Emotions^  by  Bhagavan  Das,  Theosophical 
Publishing  Society. 


THE   LARGER   CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   ITS   VALUE       1 69 

throw  it  into  the  vibrations  we  desire.  We  can  do  more 
than  that :  we  can  shape  it  into  organs  of  expression  for 
the  consciousness  that  is  unfolded  within  us.  Under- 
standing these  laws,  we  begin  to  realise  that  by  these 
bodies  we  may  come  into  touch  with  the  various  worlds 
around  us.  Let  us  see,  again,  the  method.  When  first 
the  spiritual  germ  descends  into  matter,  gathering  round 
itself  the  matter  that  it  needs,  that  matter  is  like  a  mere 
cloud.  It  is  still  so  in  the  highest  regions  for  most;  it 
is  becoming  organised  into  definite  instruments  of 
consciousness  in  the  three  lower  worlds  in  all  the  more 
advanced  members  of  our  present  race,  to  a  very  large 
extent  in  all  of  you.  If  you  pause  for  a  moment  on  the 
physical  body,  you  will  see  exactly  what  is  meant  by  the 
phrase:  the  organising  of  the  body.  You  have  here 
now  in  your  physical  body  a  valuable  instrument,  first 
for  acquiring  knowledge  of  the  outer  world,  and  then  for 
acting  on  that  world,  carrying  out  the  knowledge  you 
have  gained.  You  have,  as  you  know,  in  your  body  two 
sets  of  nerves,  called  sensory  and  motor :  by  the  sensory 
you  gather  knowledge  from  without ;  by  the  motor  you 
act  upon  the  outer  world,  utilising  the  knowledge  you 
have  gathered  to  bring  about  the  results  that  you  desire ; 
and  your  physical  body  is  well  organised  for  its  work. 
By  the  evolution  of  the  senses,  by  the  gradual  growth  of 
the  whole  nervous  system,  by  the  development  of  your 
brains,  you  have  largely  become  master  of  this  densest 
world,  the  physical  world,  to  which  your  body  is  related. 
All  that  is  needed  further  is  a  comparatively  small 
evolution — the  development  of  the  other  two  senses,  the 
conquest  of  the  realm  of  ether,  that  which  science  is 


170  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

now  investigating.  So  far,  then,  you  have  one  instru- 
ment, the  instrument  of  your  waking  consciousness. 
Through  that,  spirit  and  soul  ahke  are  working,  the  pow- 
ers of  the  soul  showing  out  as  far  as  the  density  of  the 
matter  will  permit.  Coming  into  denser  matter  is  very 
much  the  same  as  if  you  brought  a  light  through  thicker 
and  thicker  glass.  The  light  would  remain  the  light,  but 
that  which  would  show  out  through  the  glass  would  be 
less  and  less  according  to  the  opacity  of  that  glass.  So 
with  the  light  of  the  spirit  shining  through  the  soul  and 
the  body.  Your  next  work  is  the  organisation  of  the 
next  finer  body  of  matter,  that  which  I  called  the  subtle. 
In  that  your  emotions  are  working,  in  that  your  thoughts 
are  working,  and  to  a  very  large  extent  your  mental  and 
emotional  bodies — we  call  the  emotional  the  astral — are 
organised  at  the  present  time.  But  here  more  variety 
comes  in.  Some  of  you  will  have  your  astral  body  so 
well  developed  that  it  is  fit  for  separate  working  in  the 
intermediate  world.  Some  of  you  will  have  it  well 
devloped  so  far  as  consciousness  is  concerned,  but  not 
so  far  as  the  reception  of  impressions  from  the  outer 
intermediate  world.  That  is,  your  consciousness  will  be 
working  there  in  that  finer  matter  that  has  not  yet 
sufficiently  organised  the  astral  body  to  receive  im- 
pressions from  without. 

Gradually,  as  evolution  goes  on  the  organisation  of 
the  astral  body  will  go  on  in  everybody,  but  it  is  possible, 
as  I  suggested  to  you  a  few  Sundays  ago,  very  largely 
to  quicken  that  evolution,  and  gradually  to  make  the 
astral  body  what  it  ought  to  be,  as  perfect  an  instrument 
for  contact  with  the  astral  world  as  the  physical  body 


THE   LARGER   CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   ITS   VALUE      I7I 

is  for  contact  with  the  physical  world.  That  is,  of 
course,  what  a  very  considerable  number  of  people  have 
done,  and  they  are  able  to  act  either  in  or  out  of  the 
physical  body.  We  will  take  both  cases  in  a  moment. 
Take  the  finer  part  first  of  the  subtle  body — the 
mental  body.  In  most  of  you  that  also  is  fairly  organ- 
ised, but,  again,  it  is  organised  for  working  within 
yourself,  but  not  receiving  from  the  outer  mental  world 
all  that  hereafter  it  will  be  able  to  receive  and  utilise, 
and  only  a  few  of  you,  comparatively,  would  be  able  to 
leave  the  denser  and  the  astral  body  behind,  and  live  in 
the  heavenly  world,  in  full  consciousness,  working  there 
as  thoroughly  as  you  can  work  in  the  physical  world. 

What  signs  are  there  by  which  you  can  judge  how  far 
the  organisation  of  the  astral  and  the  mental  bodies  is 
going  on,  so  that  if  you  work  to  quicken  their  organisa- 
tion you  will  be  able  partly  to  judge  how  far  your  work 
is  effective?  Let  us  take  the  working  in  the  body,  the 
physical  body,  first.  As  these  other  higher  forms  of 
consciousness  begin  to  become  co-ordinated  with  the 
physical,  and  to  hand  on  to  it  the  impressions  that  they 
receive,  the  mental  body  is  becoming  highly  organised; 
when  the  person  possessing  it  is  strong  in  science, 
physical  science,  above  all  in  the  grasping  of  principles, 
in  the  power  of  observation,  in  the  ability  to  draw  con- 
clusions from  the  observations  that  have  been  made, 
organisation  is  improving.  Among  the  scientific  men 
of  our  own  time  that  mental  body  will  be  very  highly 
developed,  chiefly  for  use  in  the  waking  consciousness, 
very  imperfectly  as  yet  for  direct  reception  on  the  higher 
planes.     The  higher  development  of  the  astral  body  will 


172  THE   CHANCING   WORLD 

show  itself  in  forms  of  art  and  of  high  emotion,  and  just 
in  proportion  as  those  are  transmissible  to  the  waking 
consciousness  may  you  realise  that  the  astral  body  is 
becoming  more  definitely  organised.  When  the  body  of 
the  intellect,  the  lasting  body,  part  of  the  spiritual  body, 
is  becoming  organised,  then  it  is  that  you  find  fine 
metaphysical  ability,  great  philosophical  profundity  of 
thought,  the  highest  conceptions  of  idealistic  art,  the 
highest  achievements  in  idealistic  literature.  Those  are 
the  faculties  that  belong  to  the  beginning  of  the  spiritual 
body  in  man,  transcending  the  transitory,  beginning  to 
shape  the  permanent  instrument  of  the  Spirit.  Where 
you  have  great  talent,  where  the  mental  body  is  highly 
organised,  where  you  have  the  highest  genius,  there  the 
spiritual  body  is  beginning  its  organisation.  For  that 
highest  genius  is  the  flashing  down  from  the  organised 
spiritual  body  into  the  lower  nature  of  knowledge  which 
in  those  regions  alone  can  be  gained ;  and  when  art  and 
literature  become  illuminated  by  the  Spirit,  then  you 
have  the  mighty  geniuses  of  history  that  outlast  the 
passing  generations  and  shine  out  in  the  world  of 
thought. 

What  signs  may  we  find  other  than  those  of  the 
organisation  of  these  bodies  through  which  the  larger 
consciousness  will  work?  Genius  is  the  highest  of  all, 
save  that  which  I  spoke  of  as  the  manifestation  of  the 
Clirist,  the  Wisdom  Spirit  in  man.  But  if  we  leave 
those  loftiest  manifestations  of  the  larger  consciousness 
alone,  what  signs  may  we  find  amongst  ourselves  of  the 
growing  organisation  of  those  higher  bodies  and  the 
unfolding  of  the  larger  consciousness  ?    There  are  very 


THE  LARGER  CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   ITS  VALUE       1 73 

many  signs  to-day  of  the  organising  of  the  astral  body, 
and  it  is  in  the  lack  of  discriminating  these  from  genius 
that  we  find  a  great  absence  in  power  in  the  new  psy- 
chology. You  find  the  organisation  of  the  astral  body 
showing  itself  forth  in  the  power  to  receive  impressions 
directly  from  the  astral  plane,  and  the  power  to  translate 
them  into  the  waking  consciousness.  In  the  body  those 
first  signs  are  seen  in  telepathy  where  it  is  well  devel- 
oped, where  people  are  able  to  communicate  with  one 
another  without  the  ordinary  physical  means  of  com- 
munication, and  that  is  not  so  very  infrequent  a  thing 
among  the  more  thoughtful  of  our  own  time.  That  is 
a  power  you  can  develop,  if  you  like,  by  definite  and  reg- 
ular practice;  only  remember  that  all  development  of 
power  means  regular  practice  and  patient  and  reiterated 
experiment.  One  finds,  for  the  most  part,  that  after 
a  few  weeks  or  months  of  practice  people  are  apt  to 
drop  the  whole  thing  if  they  have  not  in  that  time 
gained  startling  results.  That  is  not  the  way  that  pow- 
ers grow.  The  law  is  sure,  that  if  you  choose  to  concen- 
trate your  mind  so  as  to  make  a  clear  image,  that  will 
be  reproduced  in  astral  matter.  Then  by  an  effort  of  the 
self-determined  will  you  can  send  that  astral  thought- 
form  to  whomsoever  you  choose;  and  if  you  practise 
that  day  after  day,  week  after  week,  nay,  even  month 
after  month  and  year  after  year,  you  will  find  that 
you  will  ultimately  develop  the  power  of  sending  thought 
clearly  and  definitely,  so  that  you  will  be  able  to  com- 
municate with  the  absent  as  surely,  as  certainly  as  any 
physical-plane  communication  can  be  sure  and  certain. 
Practice  along  these  lines  can  do  you  nothing  but  good. 


174  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

It  increases  the  power  of  the  will,  it  increases  the  con- 
centration of  thought ;  but  remember  that  without  con- 
centrated thought  and  fairly  strong  will  you  are  bound 
to  have  a  very  long  practice  before  you  will  have  results 
tangible  in  the  outer  world.  The  person  who  cannot 
keep  his  mind  steady  for  a  couple  of  minutes  at  a  time, 
the  person  who  cannot  concentrate  definitely  on  one 
thought,  such  a  person  certainly  cannot  transfer  that 
which  he  is  unable  to  create ;  and  for  a  very  considerable 
time  people  will  have  to  practise  by  creating  the  thought- 
image  before  they  will  have  anything  to  be  definitely 
sent  to  another.  But  that  is  one  of  the  means  of  organ- 
ising the  astral  and  the  mental  body  as  an  instrument  of 
the  larger  consciousness.  Some  people,  of  course,  have 
it  by  nature,  as  you  say,  but  what  does  that  mean  ?  Only 
that  they  have  practised  it  in  previous  life.  No  one  gets 
anything  for  nothing  from  nature.  On  the  other  hand, 
nature  is  a  good  paymaster,  and  pays  the  exact  wages 
that  we  have  earned,  never  withholding  anything.  If 
you  can  do  it  easily,  it  is  because  you  have  done  it  before ; 
if  you  find  it  difficult,  it  is  because  you  are  beginning  that 
definite  kind  of  work.  But  no  one  obtains  it  without 
labour,  no  one  can  develop  it  without  long  and  continued 
practice.  But  there  is  one  form  in  which  the  astral  body 
shows  its  organisation  when  you  are  out  of  the  dense 
body  and  not  in  it,  in  the  form  of  dream.  Whenever 
you  go  to  sleep  you  leave  your  dense  body  behind. 
Some  dreams  belong  only  to  the  brain;  it  is  because 
people  do  not  distinguish  dream  from  dream  that  so 
much  foolish  ridicule  is  sometimes  cast  on  the  dream- 


THE    LARGER    CONSCIOUSNESS    AND    ITS    VALUE       iy$ 

State  altogether.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  there  are 
dreams  which  grow  out  of  conditions  of  the  physical 
body,  where  a  little  change  in  the  circulation,  a  momen- 
tary block  in  some  vessel  of  the  brain,  will  cause  a 
dream,  incoherent,  senseless,  without  meaning  or  illumi- 
nation. That  is  the  physical  dream ;  it  may  be  caused 
by  any  disturbance  of  the  body — indigestion,  a  hundred 
other  things.  The  dream  that  shows  that  the  astral  body 
is  becoming  organised  is  a  dream  in  which  some  definite 
knowledge  is  conveyed,  in  which  some  definite  warning 
is  given,  in  which  something  is  added  to  you  that  you 
had  not  before,  or  in  which  you  come  into  contact  with 
someone  who  has  passed  out  of  the  physical  conditions 
through  the  gateway  of  death,  and  whom  you  may  meet 
in  the  astral  world  when  you  yourself  have  temporarily 
dropped  the  dense  body.  Those  dreams  are  coherent, 
rational,  sometimes  illuminative.  Remember  how  many 
dreams  have  now  been  put  on  record  in  which  a  man 
has  gained  in  the  dream-state  knowledge  that  he  had  not 
in  the  waking  state.  How  often  that  knowledge  gained 
in  the  dream-state  has  enabled  him  in  the  waking  state 
to  cover  over  some  gap  that  he  was  before  unable  to 
bridge.  You  will  find  in  Myers'  book  on  Human  Per- 
sonality some  of  these  dreams  given,  although  not  very 
definitely  explained,  and  if  you  find  in  your  experience 
that  those  are  becoming  more  frequent,  then  you  may  be 
sure  that  your  astral  body  is  becoming  a  vehicle  of  con- 
sciousness, an  instrument  by  which  consciousnesss  can 
work  in  the  other  world.  It  is  true  that  in  some  dreams, 
especially  of  warning,  the  thought  may  be  thrown  into 
your  mind  from  without  when  you  have  not  found  it  out 


176  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

for  yourself,  but  have  been  informed  of  it  by  another. 
Such  a  warning  may  come  through,  given  you  by  some 
friend,  some  helper,  someone  whom  you  love,  who  may 
have  passed  onwards,  and  so  has  the  advantage  of  the 
astral  vision.  But  in  all  those  cases  there  comes  into  the 
waking  consciousness  something  from  the  larger,  and  as 
you  perfect  the  astral  body  all  those  come  more  and 
more  within  your  control.  As  it  becomes  organised  there 
is  less  and  less  need  to  leave  it  in  order  to  exercise  its 
powers.  You  will  find  yourself  seeing,  hearing,  while 
the  physical  senses  are  active,  while  the  consciousness  is 
working  normally,  the  waking  consciousness  in  the  brain ; 
so  that  slowly  and  gradually  you  will  unify  the  physical 
and  the  astral  bodies  and  live  in  the  two  worlds  con- 
tinuously at  one  and  the  same  time,  finding  those  worlds 
intermingling  and  interworking ;  and  so  you  will  gain 
that  much  of  the  larger  consciousness  which  belongs 
to  the  expression  of  the  soul  through  the  subtle  astral 
body. 

Exactly  on  the  same  lines  with  the  heavenly  worlds, 
the  mental  world,  your  evolution  will  go  on,  and  for  this 
there  is  one  condition  regarding  the  consciousness,  there 
is  one  condition  regarding  the  instrument  for  the  un- 
folding of  consciousness — regular  and  steady  medita- 
tion. There  is  no  other  way.  If  you  find  anybody  telling 
you  that  by  any  physical  means  you  can  really  unfold 
your  consciousness,  tell  them  that  they  do  not  realise 
what  they  are  talking  about.  You  can  start  a  little  astral 
consciousness  on  the  lowest  parts  of  the  astral  world  by 
causing  vibrations  in  matter  in  the  physical  that  affect 
the  astral,  and  so  bring  about  a  change  in  consciousness 


THE   LARGER   CONSCIOUSNESS   AND   ITS  VALUE      1 77 

in  that  lowest  part  of  the  astral  world,  but  you  can  go 
no  further.  I  have  seen  in  India  men  who,  by  the  use  of 
difficult  physical  means  that  none  of  you  would  care  to 
use — for  they  bring  about  the  gradual  spoiling  of  the 
physical  body — I  have  known  them  able  to  leave  the 
physical  body  and  live  for  the  time  being  in  the  astral, 
but  in  that  astral  body  they  were  unconscious,  not  con- 
conscious  ;  they  were  not  coming  into  touch  with  the  as- 
tral world,  nor  using  the  larger  consciousness  at  all.  They 
had  only  forced  themselves  into  that  world  in  the  astral 
body  where  it  was  not  organised  enough  for  the  reception 
of  impressions,  nor  the  consciousness  unfolded  to  under- 
stand them,  and  they  had  injured  the  physical  brain 
and  rendered  that  practically  useless  for  physical  utility ; 
so  that  they  had  lost  both  worlds  instead  of  gaining  the 
higher  that  they  sought.  When  one  has  seen  that  hap- 
pen in  India  one  realises  that  those  methods*  are  not 
methods  that  it  is  desirable  to  spread  in  the  West;  and 
it  is  along  that  line  that  so  many  of  those  pseudo-occult 
books  are  going  which  come  to  us  from  America,  prom- 
ising that  if  we  follow  those  practices  we  shall  be  able  to 
get  the  better  of  other  people  in  business  transactions, 
and  hypnotise  them  for  our  own  advantage  and  our  own 
gain.  Wherever  you  find  that  the  method  of  working 
and  that  the  object  aimed  at,  be  sure  that  you  are  dealing 
with  a  form  of  unfolding  and  of  evolution  that  can  only 
injure;  it  cannot  really  serve.  The  worst  of  it  is  that 
those  forms  tend  to  atrophy  the  parts  of  the  brain  that 
you  want  to  bring  things  through  after  a  higher  con- 
sciousness is  active  and  the  higher  body  is  organised. 
By  this  means  you  injure  the  brain,  and  with  the  brain 

12 


178  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  connecting  link  between  this  world  and  the  next,  so 
that  you  injure  yourself  along  that  line  as  well  as  along 
the  other,  and  make  yourself  incapable,  until  you  have  a 
new  body,  of  that  higher  unfolding  at  which  you  aim. 
There  you  have  the  danger  of  people  picking  up  frag- 
ments of  an  ancient  science  of  the  East,  without  realising 
all  the  protection  with  which  in  the  East  that  science  is 
surrounded;  and  if  even  there  one  finds  occasionally 
such  cases  as  I  have  mentioned,  of  the  ruined  physical 
frame  and  the  undeveloped  astral  body,  then  how  much 
more  dangerous  it  is  when  given  to  people  of  different 
physical  heredity,  without  the  conditions  which  in  the 
East  are  ever  imposed!  Meditation,  then,  is  the  one 
safe  way  of  unfolding  the  consciousness,  and  thus  organ- 
ising the  vehicle;  and  the  other  condition  is  purity  of 
thought,  purity  of  desire,  purity  of  physical  life.  That  is 
the  matter  side  of  the  training.  Your  thoughts  must 
be  pure,  otherwise  your  mental  body  will  be  unfit  for 
higher  development ;  your  desires  must  be  pure,  or  your 
astral  body  will  not  be  fit  for  that  unfolding  at  which 
you  aim;  your  physical  body  must  be  pure,  otherwise 
when  the  developed  mental  and  astral  pour  down  their 
power  on  the  physical,  the  physical  will  be  unable  to 
answer,  and  you  will  have  hysteria  instead  of  the  wider 
consciousness  you  seek. 

Those,  roughly,  then,  are  the  conditions:  meditation 
for  the  consciousness,  purity  for  the  evolution  of  the 
instrument.  If  you  are  willing  to  accept  those  condi- 
tions, then  the  path  of  the  higher  evolution  opens  before 
you,  and  according  to  your  courage,  your  perseverance, 
and  your  ability  will  be  the  rapidity  with  which  you  can 


THE    LARGER    CONSCIOUSNESS    AND    ITS    VALUE       1 79 

tread  that  path.  The  object  before  you  should  be  the 
helping  of  others,  the  gaining  of  these  powers  in  order 
that  you  may  be  more  useful,  not  in  order  that  you  may 
be  greater  than  your  fellow-men.  Of  the  purity  of  your 
motive  there  is  only  one  test :  are  you  using  the  powers 
you  have  now  for  the  helping  of  your  race  ?  If  you  are 
not,  then  no  profession  that  you  will  use  the  higher 
powers  for  good  will  be  effective  in  bringing  you  help  in 
their  unfolding.  I  have  met  many  a  man,  many  a  wo- 
man, who  is  anxious  to  be  an  invisible  helper — that  is, 
a  worker  on  the  astral  plane — but  I  do  not  always  find 
that  those  people  are  visible  helpers  as  far  as  their 
present  powers  go.  And  I  do  not  understand  why  people 
should  want  to  go  about  in  astral  slums  when  they  keep 
carefully  away  from  the  physical  slums  which  are  al- 
ready within  their  reach.  So  far  as  you  can  go  by 
your  own  power  you  have  the  right  to  go,  but  if  you  ask 
for  help  from  those  more  highly  developed — from  the 
great  Teachers  of  the  race — ^then  you  have  to  bring  in 
your  hands  the  proof — and  that  proof  is  life,  and  not 
words — that  as  you  are  using  well  the  talent  you  have 
you  deserve  to  be  helped  in  the  gaining  of  others.  There 
is  the  underlying  meaning  of  those  strange  words  as- 
cribed to  the  Christ,  that  he  who  has  much,  to  him  shall 
be  given.  Those  who  have  used  well  that  which  they 
have,  those  alone  have  claim  to  be  helped  in  gaining 
more ;  for  by  their  life  they  have  shown  that  they  do  the 
best  with  what  they  possess,  and  that  is  the  guarantee 
that  with  more  they  will  utilise  that  also  for  the  race. 
And  so  in  the  old  rules  of  discipleship  it  was  said  that 
when  the  disciple  came  to  the  Teacher  he  must  bring  with 


l8o  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

him  in  his  hands  the  fuel  for  the  fire ;  it  was  the  fire  of 
sacrifice,  and  the  fuel  was  everything  that  the  pupil  pos- 
sessed in  mind,  body,  and  estate ;  and  he  brought  that  in 
his  hands  as  oflfering  to  the  Teacher,  and  then  alone  was 
he  accepted  by  the  one  who  knew.  And  so  in  these  days 
also  that  higher  evolution,  quickened  by  the  power  of  the 
great  Ones,  can  only  be  opened  up  to  those  who  bring  in 
their  hands  the  fuel  for  the  fire  of  sacrifice ;  you  must  be 
willing  to  give  up  everything  you  have,  and  own  nothing, 
material  or  immaterial;  you  must  hold  everything  you 
have  and  everything  you  are  at  the  service  of  the  great 
One  from  whom  you  ask  the  gift  of  knowledge.  When 
that  is  brought  the  gift  is  never  refused ;  when  that  door 
is  thus  knocked  at  it  never  remains  closed.  True  it  is 
that  the  gateway  is  narrow;  true  it  is,  now  as  of  old, 
"Strait  is  the  gate,  narrow  is  the  way,  and  few  there  be 
that  find  it."  But  the  fewness  does  not  depend  on 
the  grudging  of  the  Teacher — it  depends  on  the  want  of 
self -surrender  by  the  disciple.  Bring  all  you  have  and 
all  you  are,  lay  it  at  the  feet  of  the  Master  of  the 
Wisdom ;  He  will  open  the  gateway,  He  will  guide  you 
along  the  path.  But  dream  not  that  words  are  heard  in 
that  high  atmosphere  where  the  Master  lives  and 
breathes :  only  high  thoughts  can  reach  Him,  only  noble 
acts  can  speak  the  thoughts  you  have  conceived;  for 
voice  there  is  the  life  that  is  lived,  and  only  the  life  that 
speaks  of  sacrifice  can  claim  the  teaching  at  His  hands. 


THE  PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN 
THE  COMING  CIVILISATION 

A  Public  Lecture  delivered  in 

the  Queen's  Hall,  London,  at  the  British  Convention, 

July  2nd,  iQOp. 


Lecture  VIII 

The  Place  of  Theosophy  in  the 
Coming  Civilisation 

It  has  been  my  lot  now  for  many  years  to  visit  England 
either  every  year  or  every  other  year,  in  order  to  try  to 
spread  throughout  the  country  the  truths  of  the  ancient 
wisdom  which  in  these  days  we  call  by  its  Greek  name 
of  Theosophy.  This  year  it  has  been  my  special  duty  to 
place  on  record  in  the  capital  of  the  empire  a  certain 
line  of  teaching  with  regard  to  the  changing  conditions 
of  the  times,  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful  to 
the  signs  all  around  us  of  a  changing  civilisation — signs 
of  an  age  that  is  passing — signs  of  a  downing  civilisation 
that  may  be  seen  on  the  far  horizon  of  our  day.  And  I 
had  thought  that  I  should  only  reach  as  to  this  the  few 
thousands  that  may  be  gathered  together  Sunday  after 
Sunday  in  a  London  hall,  but  by  the  generous  kindness 
of  the  Christian  Commonwealth  these  lectures  have  been 
spread  far  and  wide.  To-night  I  am  taking  up  something 
of  the  thought  that  there  has  been  more  fully  expressed, 
with  the  special  intention  of  showing  you  the  part  that 
Theosophy  will  play  in  that  coming  civilisation,  the  na- 
ture of  the  work  that  it  is  doing  in  preparation  for  the 
civilisation  on  the  threshold.     I  have  worked  out  in 

183 


184  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

those  lectures  in  some  detail  what  here  I  must  only  state, 
that  just  as  you  can  find  in  watching  the  evolution  of 
a  man  tliat  at  different  ages  of  his  life  he  is  dominated  by 
different  parts,  as  we  may  say,  of  his  consciousness — as 
we  find  emotion  dominating  him  in  youth,  mind  dominat- 
ing him  in  his  maturity,  the  wisdom  of  the  Spirit  in  his 
age — so  we  may  see,  in  glancing  abroad  over  the  civili- 
sations and  the  races  of  men,  that  a  similar  succession 
may  be  observed,  and  that  hence  an  indication  of  the  fu- 
ture may  be  obtained.  For  we  can  see  in  the  race  that 
preceded  our  own,  and  still  is  living  and  active,  the  great 
Keltic  race,  how  high  emotion  is  the  dominant  note,  and 
how  the  expression  of  that  emotion  finds  itself  best  in 
poetry  and  in  art.  We  can  see  that  in  the  Teutonic  race 
intellect  is  the  dominant  note,  and  that  mind  in  all  the 
spheres  of  its  triumph  shows  itself  out  among  the  peo- 
ples who  grow  from  that  stock,  of  which  our  own  nation 
is  a  branch.  That  being  of  the  past  and  the  present,  it  is 
not  irrational  to  look  now  in  the  unfolding  humanity  for 
the  growth  of  the  next  principle,  the  next  mark  in  the 
opening  consciousness,  the  development  of  the  spiritual 
nature  in  man,  which  succeeds  the  intellectual  as  inev- 
itably as  that  succeeds  the  emotional,  and  places  the 
crown  of  wisdom  and  all-embracing  love  on  the  brow  of 
the  humanity  which  has  passed  through  youth,  is  passing 
through  its  manhood,  is  going  onwards  to  the  full  ma- 
turity of  its  evolution.  So  in  the  coming  civilisation 
we  shall  expect  to  find  spirituality  the  prevailing  mark, 
dominating  religion,  dominating  science,  art,  and  society, 
and  we  may  rationally  look,  as  spirituality  grows,  and 
shapes  and  moulds  the  coming  civilisation,  that  in  the 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION    185 

sphere  of  religion  we  shall  see  ever-increasing  unity ;  in 
the  sphere  of  science  we  shall  find  new  methods  of 
investigation,  new  powers  to  use  in  thought ;  that  in  the 
sphere  of  mind  we  shall  find  nobler  ideals,  more  inspiring 
power;  and  in  society  we  shall  find  spirituality  showing 
itself,  laying  the  foundation  of  society  in  self-sacrifice, 
building  it  up  by  self-control,  and  marking  Brotherhood 
as  its  ultimate  goal  and  achievement. 

Such,  very  roughly,  are  the  signs  that  we  think  will 
mark  the  coming  civilisation.  What  has  Theosophy  to  do 
with  that  civilisation :  what  its  place,  its  part,  its  duty  ? 
That  is  the  question  that  I  am  to  try  to  answer  to-night. 
And  fairly  the  questions  might  be  asked  in  speaking  of 
Theosophy  by  those  who  know  little  of  it  save  the  name 
— and  how  little  of  it  is  known  we  can  often  see  in  the 
allusions  we  find  to  it  in  our  daily  Press — naturally  the 
questions  might  arise:  What  is  Theosophy?  Whence 
does  it  come  ?  Briefly,  those  preliminary  questions,  then, 
should  be  answered.  Theosophy,  in  the  first  place,  as  its 
name  implies,  is  the  declaration  that  man  as  a  spiritual 
being  can  directly  know  God  who  is  Spirit.  It  is  the  pro- 
clamation of  the  ancient  Gnosis  as  against  the  agnosti- 
cism of  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Secondly,  it  is  a  body  of  doctrines  which  are  common 
to  all  the  great  religions  of  the  world ;  doctrines  which 
we  find  explained,  more  or  less  perfectly  and  fully,  in 
every  great  religion  of  the  past  as  well  as  in  every  great 
religion  of  the  present;  a  collection  of  teachings,  spir- 
itual in  their  nature,  universal  in  their  spread,  en- 
deavouring to  guide  man  along  the  way  to  perfection, 
training  him  in  life,  illuminating  him  in  the  hour  of  death. 


l86  HE    CHANGING    WORLD 

It  does  not  deal  with  any  special  rites,  any  special  cere- 
monies, any  special  part  of  the  teaching  of  religion  which 
is  not  universal,  which  is  not  everywhere  to  be  found. 
So  far  as  those  are  concerned,  the  specialties  of  every 
religion,  it  studies  them,  it  explains  them,  it  shows  the 
occult  meanings  which  often  lie  behind  the  outer  gar- 
ment of  ceremony,  behind  the  ordinary  rites  of  worship, 
behind  the  symbols  that  you  find  in  every  faith;  but 
while  it  explains  them,  illuminates  them,  enforces  their 
real  value,  it  does  not  strive  to  persuade  people  to  adopt 
one  religion  rather  than  another,  but,  instead  of  giving 
up  their  own  religion  for  another,  it  counsels  them  to 
find  in  that  religion  the  deep  truths  that  all  faiths  have 
in  common.  Hence  it  endeavours,  where  religion  is  con- 
cerned, to  bring  peace  instead  of  war,  to  make  religion  a 
healer  rather  than  a  divider,  a  peacemaker  rather  than  a 
battle-cry  among  men.  And  in  searching  out  these  es- 
sentials of  every  religion,  and  drawing  these  out  and 
setting  them  before  the  minds  of  men,  it  justifies  its 
claim  to  its  name  of  the  Ancient  Wisdom,  of  that  Divine 
Wisdom  in  which  all  the  great  religions  have  their  root. 
Such,  very  roughly  and  briefly  again,  is  Theosophy  in 
its  essence:  a  Gnosis  as  regards  the  relation  of  man  to 
God,  a  statement  of  fundamental  spiritual  truths  com- 
mon to  the  great  religions  of  the  world.  In  a  moment, 
in  dealing  with  its  work  in  the  religion  of  the  future,  I 
will  mention  those  doctrines  one  by  one,  so  that  you 
may  see  for  yourselves  how  they  may  be  traced  in  all 
the  scriptures,  living  and  dead,  and  in  all  the  religions 
of  the  world.  I  put  first  the  blunt  statement  of  what 
Theosophy  is,  in  order,  if  possible,  to  clear  away  the 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING'  CIVILISATION   187 

clouds  which  ignorance  and  prejudice  have  spread 
around  it. 

Taking  it,  then,  that  the  coming  civilisation  is  to  be 
spiritual,  that  this  Theosophy  is  to  have  a  definite  place 
and  work  therein,  let  me  try  to  point  out  to  you  the 
nature  of  the  work,  the  lines  along  which  Theosophy 
labours  to  prepare  the  way  for,  as  well  as  to  influence, 
that  coming  civilisation  for  which  we  look ;  and  when  I 
say  to  prepare  the  way  for,  it  is  because  we  believe  that 
every  great  religion  has  a  civilisation  attached  to  it,  and 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  religion  the  civilisation 
that  it  moulds  will  be ;  and  because  we  also  believe  that 
at  the  beginning  of  every  civilisation  a  great  Teacher 
appears  in  the  world  to  give  the  impulse  to  that  civilisa- 
tion and  to  shape  the  religion  that  will  mould  it.  Hence, 
with  our  looking  for  a  coming  civilisation,  we  look  also 
for  the  manifestation  of  a  great,  a  divine  Teacher. 

But  I  said,  people  might  ask  not  only  what  is 
Theosophy,  but — Whence  does  it  come  ?  It  is  the  latest 
— I  do  not  say  the  last — of  the  great  impulses  which,  one 
after  another,  in  the  long  past  of  history,  have  founded 
the  great  religions  of  the  world.  Those  impulses  ever 
come  from  a  mighty  Brotherhood  of  Teachers  made  up 
of  the  past  Founders  of  religion,  presided  over  by  the 
Supreme  Teacher  who  rules  and  guides  and  inspires 
them  all — a  mighty  Brotherhood  of  Teachers  of  the 
world,  coming  from  time  to  time  to  found  a  religion,  to 
shape  a  civilisation.  Such  impulses  were  often  repeated 
in  the  past,  to  be  again  repeated  in  the  century  which 
now  is  running  its  course  amongst  us,  history  in  very 
truth  repeating  itself,  and  bringing  at  the  appointed 


I»»  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

time  a  new  civilisation,  preceded  by  a  new  spiritual 
impulse. 

That  impulse  on  this  occasion  has  differed  from  all 
that  went  before  it  in  that  it  founds  no  new  religion, 
builds  no  new  barrier,  does  not  mark  out  believers  and 
unbelievers,  does  not  try  to  proselytise,  but  only  to 
inspire.  For,  as  I  just  said,  Theosophy  goes  to  all  re- 
ligions as  a  peacemaker,  and  does  not  strive  to  draw 
away  from  any  faith  those  whom  the  law  has  brought  to 
birth  beneath  its  shelter.  So  its  first  work  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  coming  civilisation  is  to  try  to  bring  about  a 
brotherhood  of  religions,  not  destroying  any,  not  trying 
to  make  any  less  potent  than  they  were  before,  but  en- 
deavouring to  transform,  them  from  rivals  to  brothers, 
so  that  each  religion  may  recognise  its  kinship  with  other 
religions,  and  they  may  become  one  mighty  family, 
instead  of  warring  and  separate  creeds.  Now,  to  that 
high  end  it  brings  the  knowledge  of  facts  which  have 
largely  been  used  against  religion,  but  ought  really  to  be 
used  in  its  service.  Those  of  you  who  have  reached 
even  middle  age  will  remember  how  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century  there  grew  up  among  the  sciences 
of  the  time  a  science  which  was  named  Comparative 
Mythology.  You  will  remember  how  that  science  grew ; 
the  oldest  among  you  may  remember  its  very  beginnings. 
It  sought  out  of  the  past  religions,  as  well  as  out  of  the 
present  religions,  to  prove  that  religion  grew  up  out  of 
ignorance,  and  only  became  refined  as  it  grew  older  and 
spread  among  more  cultivated  people.  It  used  the 
researches  of  the  archaeologist,  the  discoveries  of  the 
antiquarian,   as    weapons    against   the   religion    which 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION   189 

dominated  Christendom,  where  science  was  most  power- 
ful and  most  active.  It  took  up  doctrine  after  doctrine 
of  the  Christian  faith,  and  pointed  to  the  existence  of 
those  doctrines  in  other  times,  in  other  civilisations, 
among  the  religions  of  the  past,  both  living  and  dead. 
It  brought  information  from  the  open  tombs  of  Egypt, 
and  gathered  together  the  fragments  of  Egyptian  knowl- 
edge as  they  were  traced  on  the  papyrus,  on  the  leaf 
that  was  put  on  the  bosom  of  the  mummy.  It  gathered 
them  together,  and  out  of  those  scattered  fragments  it 
made  what  we  know  well  as  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the 
Dead.  It  did  the  same  with  Chaldaea,  the  same  with 
Nineveh,  the  same  with  those  replicas  of  Egyptian 
temples  that  were  unburied  in  far-off  Mexico — ^temples 
thousands  of  years  older  than  the  Aztecs,  who  slew  their 
worshippers  and  destroyed  their  civilisation,  the  Aztecs, 
who  themselves  were  thousands  of  years  old  when 
Cortez  and  his  Spaniards  treated  them  as  they  had 
treated  their  forerunners.  It  brought  from  those  un- 
buried temples  similar  teachings  and  similar  ideas.  It 
gathered,  again,  similar  teachings  from  the  books  of 
China,  with  its  immemorial  traditions;  from  the  scrip- 
tures of  India,  from  the  fragments  of  the  Zoroastrian 
tradition,  from  the  books  of  the  Buddhist  nations,  from 
Greek  and  Roman.  Piling  up  all  the  evidence  it  had 
gathered,  it  made  out  of  that  the  science  of  Comparative 
Mythology.  It  was  the  deadliest  weapon  that  was  ever 
forged  against  dogmatic  Christianity,  because  founded 
on  knowledge  of  facts  that  none  could  deny.  Then  it  was 
that  it  became  the  duty  of  Theosophy,  just  then  born  into 
the  world,  to  come  forward  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of 


1 90  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

the  facts,  and  to  add  many  others  to  the  store,  but  to 
point  out  that  instead  of  Comparative  Mythology  there 
should  be  built  a  science  of  Comparative  Religion,  show- 
ing that  that  which  had  been  universally  taught  was 
truth,  and  not  lies ;  was  verity,  and  not  delusion.  It  de- 
fended every  religion  by  the  universality  of  religious  be- 
liefs ;  and  it  pointed  out  that  a  truth  did  not  cease  to  be 
a  truth  because  it  was  ancient,  did  not  cease  to  be  a  truth 
because  it  ruled  in  ancient  times  as  well  as  now ;  it  justi- 
fied religion  by  the  very  arguments  that  were  used  to 
discredit  it,  and  traced  it  to  a  universal  Ancient  Wisdom, 
instead  of  to  the  ignorance  of  the  savage,  refined  in  mod- 
ern days.  It  brought  to  that  contention  many  an  argu- 
ment on  which  I  have  not  time  to  dwell,  but  that  you  can 
very  easily  read  for  yourselves,  if  it  be  unknown  to  you, 
in  the  many  publications  that  have  been  written  along 
these  lines.  And  now,  in  order  to  utilise  that  for  the 
coming  time  in  the  building  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Re- 
ligions, we  proclaim  in  every  country,  to  every  faith, 
among  the  people  of  every  religion,  the  common  heritage, 
the  spiritual  verity,  the  primary  doctrines  that  are  found 
in  every  faith.  What  are  they?  They  are  but  iew,  al- 
though far-reaching.  They  could  be  counted  on  the  fin- 
gers of  two  hands,  and  even^han  that,  so  few  are  they. 
The  first  great  doctrine  that  every  religion  teaches  is 
the  unity  of  God ;  the  second,  that  God  in  manifestation 
is  ever  triple.  In  philosophy  they  speak  of  three  qualities 
or  attributes;  in  religion  they  mostly  personify,  and 
speak  of  a  Trinity  or  a  triple  form.  But  whether  philo- 
sophical, or  personified  in  religion,  you  have  ever  Power 
or  Will,  Wisdom,  Activity,  and  you  can  find  those  in  the 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION   IQI 

Trinity  of  every  nation,  whether  you  take  in  the  Chris- 
tian creed  the  Father,  the  embodiment  of  Power,  of  Will, 
the  Son,  the  Wisdom  everlasting ;  the  Spirit,  the  creative 
Activity  by  which  the  worlds  are  made.  Or  you  might 
take  it  equally  well  in  Hinduism,  and  there  you  would 
see  the  order  reversed :  the  Creator,  who  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  Activity;  the  Preserver,  the  embodiment  of 
Wisdom;  the  Regenerator,  the  embodiment  of  Power. 
And  so  might  I  take  you  to  ancient  and  dead  religions, 
and  to  ancient  and  living  religions,  and  show  you  ever 
the  same.  For  those  primary  truths  of  God  are  every- 
where proclaimed,  one  in  His  nature,  triple  in  His 
manifestation.  And  then,  after  those  first  two  truths, 
you  come  to  the  third :  the  vast  family  of  the  Sons  of 
God,  the  great  hierarchy  of  spiritual  intelligences — arch- 
angels, angels,  shining  ones ;  call  them  what  you  will — 
that  mighty  family  of  Sons  of  God,  amongst  which  hu- 
manity finds  its  own  place  in  process  of  evolution.  Then 
you  come  to  the  fourth  great  teaching:  that  you  have 
the  unfolding  of  consciousness  going  on  continually,  and 
shaping  ever  finer  and  finer  bodies  for  its  own  expres- 
sion; that  which  science  calls  evolution,  but  which  re- 
ligion has  ever  called  reincarnation,  the  method  of  per- 
fecting the  germinal  seed  of  ^divinity  into  the  divine 
man,  when  the  human  evolution  is  complete.  Then, 
fifthly,  the  worlds  in  which  these  changes  go  on:  our 
earth,  the  intermediate  world,  and  the  heavenly;  and 
man,  with  bodies  of  matter  belonging  to  all  the  worlds, 
so  that  he  may  be  in  contact  with  each.  And  then  the 
sixth  great  teaching  of  universal  law — law  in  the  world 
of  mind  as  well  as  in  the  world  of  matter;  law  which 


192  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

builds  character  as  well  as  builds  the  outer  world ;  law  un- 
changing and  inviolable,  which,  because  we  can  know, 
we  can  utilise  to  the  building  up  of  ourselves  into  noblest 
ideals.  And  then,  closing  these  doctrines  that  are  com- 
mon to  every  religion,  we  find  the  idea  of  the  Teachers 
who  preside  over  human  evolution,  who  inspire  religions, 
who  guard  the  spiritual  progress  of  mankind.  Those  are 
the  truths  universal,  those  are  the  teachings  which  every 
religion  has  had  and  has;  and  so  we  find  in  these  re- 
ligions, by  their  unity  of  teaching,  the  reality  of  Brother- 
hood that  we  seek  everywhere  to  spread.  For  of  what 
avail  to  change  from  one  faith  to  another  if  in  the  new 
religion  you  only  find  the  same  old  truths,  though 
ceremonies  and  rites  may  differ?  And  we  see  in  this 
Brotherhood  of  Religions  one  value  to  mankind  which 
one  religion  only  could  never  have  given  to  us.  Just  as 
you  see  the  light  of  the  sun  broken  up  into  many  colours, 
and  those  colours  giving  all  the  beauty  to  earth  which 
you  see  in  the  nature  around  you;  just  as  you  know 
that  those  colours  that  constitute  white  light  can  be  re- 
combined  again  into  the  white  light  whence  they  sprung, 
so  is  it  with  religions.  The  great  truths,  the  great 
virtues  are  as  one — the  great  white  light  of  truth ;  they 
are  broken  up  by  the  prism  of  the  intellect,  and  the 
many  religion '^>  ray  out,  each  with  its  own  colour;  they 
are  recombined  by  the  prism  of  the  Spirit,  and  once 
again  are  blended  into  the  unity  of  truth. 

If  you  look  at  religions  you  will  see  how  true  that  is. 
Every  religion  has  a  note  of  its  own,  a  colour  of  its  own, 
that  it  gives  for  the  helping  of  the  world.  Go  back  to 
ancient  Egypt,  and  you  find  the  note  of  the  Egyptian 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION   I93 

religion  is  knowledge,  so  that  Egyptian  religion  became 
the  mother  of  Egyptian  science,  and  science  spread  from 
Egypt  westwards  over  Europe.  Go  to  the  Far  East, 
and  you  will  find  in  India  that  the  special  note  of 
Hinduism  is  the  all-pervading*  nature  of  Deity,  and  the 
all-compelling  duty  which  is  the  law  for  every  individual. 
Go  to  Persia  in  her  ancient  days,  and  there  the  note  of 
purity  was  struck — ^purity  of  thought,  of  word,  of  act. 
Go  to  Greece,  and  you  will  find  her  note  was  beauty — 
beauty  in  architecture,  beauty  in  sculpture,  beauty  in 
painting,  beauty  in  the  perfection  of  her  philosophy, 
which  made  the  Beautiful  of  equal  rank  with  the  True 
and  the  Good.  And  in  Rome  you  find  the  note  of  law, 
law  all-compelling ;  and  in  Christianity  the  note  of  self- 
sacrifice,  which  has  in  it  the  promise  of  the  future ;  and 
in  Islam  the  proclamation  again  of  the  divine  unity. 
And  so  every  religion  with  its  own  note,  every  religion 
with  its  own  colour;  blended  together  they  give  the 
whiteness  of  truth,  blended  together  they  give  a  mighty 
chord  of  perfection. 

Now  that  you  could  not  have  had  with  one  faith  and 
one  creed.  Human  thought  is  too  narrow,  human  brain 
cannot  grasp  at  once  this  many-noted  chord  of  perfec- 
tion ;  and  so  many  religions,  each  with  its  own  character- 
istic, as  though  the  Divine  Name  were  to  be  spelt  out  by 
the  religions,  and  each  gave  a  single  letter,  all  the  letters 
together  making  the  name  of  the  Blessed  One.  When 
you  look  on  religion  in  that  way  you  realise  how  mighty 
a  thing  it  is,  how  its  strength  is  in  unity  expressed  in 
diversity;  how  each  religion  should  learn  from  others 
and  share  with  others  that  which  is  its  own  specialty. 

13 


194  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

And  surely  that  does  not  lower  religion,  but  makes  it 
greater;  surely  it  does  not  make  it  less  compelling,  but 
more  attractive.  Is  Christ  less  when  He  taught  "Love 
your  enemies,"  because  we  know  that  the  Buddha  said, 
six  hundred  years  before  Him,  "Hatred  ceases  not  by 
hatred  at  any  time;  hatred  ceases  by  love"?  Or  is  it 
not  more  beautiful  to  see  in  the  Buddha  and  the  Christ 
proclaimers  of  the  one  eternal  law,  coming  at  different 
times  to  different  nations,  but  ever  with  a  single  truth, 
ever  with  one  code  to  teach  to  men  ? 

Now  in  trying  to  do  this  work — which,  of  course,  is 
taken  in  detail  when  one  is  dealing  only  with  that  side 
of  thought — Theosophy  is  preparing  for  that  common 
spiritual  religion,  the  one  Divine  Wisdom,  of  which  all 
the  religions  of  the  world  shall  see  themselves  as 
branches,  while  the  trunk  and  root  of  truth  are  one. 
That  is  the  great  work,  then,  in  the  coming  civilisation, 
which  it  is  the  duty  of  Theosophy  to  labour  at;  and 
hence,  in  one  of  its  early  teachings,  it  was  said  it  was  to 
be  the  corner-stone  of  the  religion  of  humanity.  For 
the  religion  of  humanity  will  be  the  Brotherhood  of 
Religions  that  I  have  been  describing,  where  no  religion 
can  be  spared,  for  each  has  something  special,  but  where 
all  religions  will  be  seen  as  one,  because  they  give  similar 
truths  in  different  forms. 

Let  us  pass  from  that,  and  ask  what  Theosophy  is  to 
do  in  the  coming  civilisation,  in  the  science  of  that  time. 
Science  in  the  coming  days  will  pass  into  subtler  worlds, 
or  subtler  matter.  It  has  practically  conquered  the 
grosser,  denser  forms  of  matter ;  it  is  now  going  onward 
to  the  subtler  and  the  finer.  And  there  lies  its  difficulty : 


OF  THE  \ 

UNIVCRSiTYJ 
PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION   I95 

that  the  methods  which  did  for  the  grosser,  the  apparatus 
that  measured  the  grosser,  are  not  applicable  for  the 
subtler.  And  when  I  say  "the  gross,"  think  how  fine 
even  its  apparatus  is,  for  quite  lately  I  had  sent  to  me  an 
article  in  a  scientific  journal  which  spoke  of  an  apparatus 
that  could  measure  the  forty-millionth  of  an  inch,  and 
yet  that  is  coarse  compared  with  the  subtleties  of  the 
matter  that  lies  beyond  that,  which  science  must  conquer 
in  the  coming  days.  Now  of  what  value  can  Theosophy 
be  there?  It  is  bringing,  by  training,  the  possibility  to 
man  in  our  modern  days  of  quickening  his  own  evolution, 
and  running  ahead  of  the  slow  working  of  the  laws  of 
nature  unguided  by  human  intelligence.  It  is  bringing, 
and  proclaiming  everywhere,  a  system  by  which  man  can 
more  rapidly  unfold  the  powers  of  his  consicousness, 
and  also  may  more  rapidly  develop  the  organs  of  finer 
matter  that  are  related  to  those  worlds  of  finer  matter 
which  science  will  soon  enter  and  begin  to  conquer.  It 
is  telling  people  how  to  develop  the  finer  senses,  and 
showing  them  the  line  along  which  the  very  few  have 
gone  in  the  past,  but  along  which  myriads  shall  tread  in 
the  future,  the  next  great  stage  of  human  evolution,  the 
organising  of  the  finer  body  in  man.  It  is  bringing  that 
to  the  help  of  science  in  order  that  by  the  evolution  of 
the  finer  body  the  finer  world  may  become  the  object  of 
observation,  exactly  on  the  same  lines,  exactly  by  the 
same  laws,  that  your  grosser  physical  bodies  to-day 
enable  you  to  investigate  the  grosser  physical  world 
around  you.  There  are  eyes  that  are  keener  than  these 
organs  evolved  from  the  pigment  spots  of  the  medusa ; 
there  are  ears  finer  and  subtler  than  those  of  our  body. 


196  THE    CHANGING    WORLD 

exquisite  as  they  are  in  their  mechanism  and  in  their 
delicacy;  there  are  organs  of  sense  transcending  the 
physical.  Within  the  physical  brain  is  an  organ  evolv- 
ing which  shall  be  the  connecting  link  between  those 
finer  senses  of  the  finer  body  and  the  grosser  senses  of 
the  body  of  flesh  that  we  wear ;  an  organ  that  many  of 
our  scientists  think  is  an  organ  that  is  passing  away,  be- 
cause it  is  larger  in  the  earlier  stages  of  evolution  than 
in  the  highly  developed  man ;  it  is  the  pituitary  body.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  size,  but  of  inner  complexity  of  or- 
ganisation; and  that  organ  is  not  simply  what  science 
calls  it,  a  vestigial  organ — that  is,  one  belonging  to  the 
evolution  of  the  past — it  is  truly  a  rudimentary  organ, 
one  belonging  to  the  evolution  of  the  future.  And  the 
fact  of  that  has  been  proved  by  bringing  life-currents, 
electric  currents,  to  bear  on  that  particular  organ,  so 
that  the  results  of  the  finer  senses  are  communicated  to 
the  brain,  and  we  bridge  what  some  people  think  the 
gulf  between  the  world  of  physical  matter  and  the  world 
that  is  called  that  of  astral  matter. 

Those  experiments  are  now  so  familiar  to  some  of  us 
that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  agree  with  the  notion  that 
that  organ  in  the  brain  has  no  future,  as  we  find  it  can  be 
stimulated  and  organised  more  finely,  and  used  in  this 
definite  fashion;  we  know  that  what  a  few  are  doing 
now  many  shall  do  to-morrow,  and  those  who  have  done 
it  are  only  a  step  in  front ;  others  are  treading  on  their 
heels,  and  may  outstrip  them  soon  in  evolution.  But 
here  comes  the  difficulty,  especially  for  the  nations  of 
western  Europe,  who,  from  climatic  and  other  reasons, 
have  taken  so  very  largely  to  a  diet  of  flesh,  in  which 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION   I97 

also  alcohol  plays  a  large  part.  Now  flesh  and  alcohol 
are  not  suitable  materials  for  building  up  the  body  of  our 
ordinary  life,  which  is  to  be  made  sensitive  enough  to 
receive  the  vibrations  from  the  finer  matter  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking.  Doctors  have  just  discovered  what 
was  published  by  Madame  Blavatsky  many  years  ago — 
that  alcohol  has  a  direct  effect  on  the  pituitary  body, 
and  poisons  that  body,  tending  to  cause  inflammation. 
Have  you  ever  wondered  why  it  is  that  alcoholic  excess 
leads  to  what  is  called  delirium  tremens,  in  which  people 
see  things  that  do  not  exist  to  the  ordinary  people  around 
them  ?  It  is  because  they  have  poisoned  that  very  organ 
by  which  vibrations  come  from  other  worlds;  and  al- 
though what  they  see  is  largely  abnormal  and  irrational, 
it  is  none  the  less  the  result  of  action  on  these  ir- 
regular and  poisoned  bodies,  which  vibrate  under  the 
stress  of  poison  instead  of  under  the  stress  of  thought, 
as  they  should  do.  And  that  which  doctors  now  have 
discovered  and  are  publishing  as  a  warning  to  people, 
that  has  ever  been  known  in  occult  science,  and  one  of 
the  conditions  of  giving  the  details  of  the  methods 
whereby  that  body  may  be  rendered  active,  has  been 
abstinence  from  alcohol,  and  for  the  simplest  reason. 
So  long  as  you  are  not  using  any  of  these  methods,  it 
does  not  so  very  much  matter  whether  that  body  be  poi- 
soned or  not.  You  may  live  long  with  a  poisoned  pitui- 
tary body ;  but  the  very  moment  that  you  begin  to  work 
upon  it,  to  make  it  active,  to  throw  into  it  new  currents 
of  life  and  energy,  then  the  poison  and  the  energy  to- 
gether bring  about  inflammation  of  the  most  intractable 
kind,  causing  severe  pain,  as  well  as  brain  mischief.  And 


igS  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

it  is  for  that  reason  that  the  methods  have  not  been  pub- 
licly given,  and  are  only  given  to  those  who  are  pure 
from  the  taint  of  alcohol.  Along  those  lines,  then,  you 
will  very  likely  come  up  against  rules  that  many  of  you 
will  not  care  to  adopt.  We  do  not  say  adopt  them ;  we 
only  say  they  are  the  conditions  of  the  finer  organisation. 
Natural  laws  do  not  change  for  people's  wishes  and 
whims.  If  you  want  electric  sparks  from  a  machine 
you  must  make  the  conditions ;  you  must  have  dry  air, 
not  air  full  of  moisture.  It  is  no  good  saying  that  dry 
air  is  not  so  comfortable  to  breathe  as  moist  air.  You 
are  not  obliged  to  have  electric  sparks,  but  if  you  want 
them  you  must  conform  to  the  conditions  laid  down  by 
nature,  and  not  follow  your  own  whims.  And  that  is 
true  everywhere.  Presently  people  will  find  that  it  is 
true  when  they  want  to  investigate  some  of  the  spirit- 
ualistic phenomena;  they  have  not  discovered  that  yet. 
They  think  they  can  lay  down  the  laws,  and  then  get  the 
results  which  can  only  be  gained  by  obedience.  The 
other  day  I  was  reading  a  rather  curious  report  of  in- 
vestigation into  spiritualistic  photographs;  and  when  I 
saw  they  had  not  obtained  any,  I  could  not  help  won- 
dering how  many  physical  photographs  they  would  be 
able  to  get  if  they  made  it  a  rule  that  they  should  not 
put  a  dark  cloth  over  the  camera,  and  that,  above  all, 
they  should  not  take  the  photographs  away  into  the  dark 
room,  because  that  gives  all  possibilities  of  cheating  and 
of  fraud.  Presently  you  will  find  out  that  finer  nature 
has  her  laws  quite  as  much  as  grosser  nature,  and  that 
you  can  no  more  get  results  without  obedience  to  those 
laws  than  you  could  get  your  photograph  if  your  plates 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING,  CIVILISATION    I99 

were  exposed  to  the  light.    When  that  is  learned,  prog- 
ress may  be  more  rapid. 

Along  that  line,  where  these  rules  are  laid  down  for 
the  organisation  of  the  finer  bodies,  there  is  another  mat- 
ter that  comes  in :  it  is  of  no  use  to  develop  the  finer 
bodies,  unless  the  consciousness  of  the  higher  worlds  is 
unfolded,  and  the  only  way  to  do  that  is  by  the  old  way 
of  strenuous  and  regular  meditation.  Theosophy  brings 
to  the  Western  world  the  yoga  of  the  East,  by  which 
the  man  who  practises  so  trains  and  refines  his  brain  that 
he  makes  it  sensitive  without  making  it  diseased.  There 
is  where  the  difficulty  is  found  in  the  West.  Sometimes, 
when  a  great  rush  comes  down  from  the  higher  worlds 
into  the  body  of  some  great  saint  or  some  great  genius, 
there  is  brain  trouble  and  brain  disturbance ;  hysteria  is 
found.  Naturally,  because  you  are  overstraining  your 
instrument.  And  if  you  want  to  be  able  to  receive  those 
great  downflows  from  the  higher  world,  then  you  must 
begin  to  tune  your  instrument  to  vibrate  to  the  swifter 
vibrations  that  come  down.  You  can  do  it,  and  there  is 
no  danger  unless  you  go  to  excess.  If  day  by  day  you 
would  give  even  ten  minutes,  or  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  to 
strenuous  thought  and  careful  concentration,  you  would 
gradually  make  your  brain  constitution  more  complex 
and  finer  than  it  is.  Thought  is  really  the  creator  of  the 
brain.  As  you  think,  your  brain  grows;  just  as  if  you 
exercise  your  muscles,  your  muscles  grow  and  develop. 
It  is  all  law,  and  thought  is  the  force  which  renders  the 
brain  more  complex  in  its  organisation.  The  Indian  yogi 
practises  that,  and  by  practise  year  after  year,  builds 
up  the  brain  of  the  coming  race  out  of  the  brain  of  the 


200  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

race  that  is.  He  makes  it  finer,  subtler,  more  responsive, 
and  he  does  it  without  the  sacrifice  of  physical  health ; 
and  that  is  a  thing  that  any  one  of  you  may  begin,  if 
only  you  will  be  moderate  and  not  excessive.  Never 
concentrate  to  the  point  of  making  a  feeling  of  dulness 
and  heaviness  of  the  brain;  never  concentrate  to  the 
point  of  pain ;  dulness  and  pain  are  the  danger-signals  of 
nature,  that  you  are  trying  to  change  matter  more 
rapidly  in  its  arrangement  than  is  possibly  consistent 
with  health.  Therefore  you  need  moderation ;  but,  given 
moderation,  nothing  but  good  can  come  out  of  the 
practise  of  meditation  and  concentration;  and  by  that 
you  will  not  only  make  your  brain  more  sensitive,  but 
also  keep  it  sane  and  healthy,  and  you  will  have  none  of 
those  miserable  hysterical  symptoms  which  have  so 
blurred  the  value  of  the  knowledge  that  has  come  through 
the  seer  or  the  saint.  Along  those  lines,  then,  The- 
osophy  works  with  science  to  show  the  road  of  develop- 
ment of  science  in  the  coming  civilisation. 

What  has  Theosophy  to  do  with  regard  to  art  in  that 
civilisation?  Glance  at  the  results  of  your  civilisation 
to-day  on  the  beauty  of  the  land.  Go  to  Sheffield,  which 
is  built  in  what  was  one  of  the  loveliest  valleys  of  the 
Midlands ;  notice,  as  you  come  near  it,  the  beauty  of  the 
countryside,  the  wooding  of  the  undulating  land,  the  ex- 
quisite beauty  of  rivulet,  of  forest,  and  of  grass;  and 
then,  out  of  all  that  beauty  of  Nature,  you  plunge  sud- 
denly into  the  hideousness  of  Sheffield.  You  find  the  at- 
mosphere thick  with  black  smoke.  No  tree  will  grow  in 
many  of  the  districts,  no  flowers  even  on  the  sills  of  the 
houses  of  the  poor.  The  atmosphere  poisons  vegetation : 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION  201 

what  do  you  think  it  does  to  the  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren who  breathe  it  ?  And  Sheffield  is  not  alone.  Go  to 
Glasgow;  see  the  hideousness  of  that,  the  second  me- 
tropolis of  Scotland.  Go  to  Birmingham,  to  Manchester, 
to  any  of  these  great  cities  that  so  largely  make  the 
wealth  of  England.  But  sometimes  it  seems  to  me  that 
what  you  pay  in  beauty  is  too  heavy  a  price  even  for 
your  wealth,  and  that  England  was  happier  as  well  as 
healthier  when  she  had  fewer  millionaires,  but  also 
fewer  stunted  and  deformed  specimens  of  humanity  in 
her  slums.  Look  at  the  faces  of  the  men,  women,  and 
children  of  one  or  two  of  those  cities  I  have  mentioned. 
Look  at  the  faces  of  the  Glasgow  crowd  as  it  tramps 
back  from  its  labour  to  the  slum.  Those  faces  are  not 
civilised ;  they  are  brutal,  many  of  them — animal,  more 
than  human.  Oh,  you  who  think  that  beauty  is  only  a 
luxury,  look  at  the  humanity  you  breed,  where  ugliness 
is  the  mark  of  the  cities,  instead  of  the  beauty  that  has 
been  destroyed.  You  must  learn  to  understand  what 
beauty  means.  It  moulds  the  body,  and  ugliness  does 
the  same.  Out  of  your  hideous  cities  a  hideous  humanity 
grows  up.  The  restoration  of  art  is  a  matter  of  life  and 
death,  not  a  matter  of  luxury  and  of  enjoyment.  Artists 
are  wanted  in  our  towns  much  more  than  on  the  walls  of 
our  galleries.  Only  a  few  go  into  the  gallery,  but  men, 
women,  and  children  live  in  the  town.  Until  the  town 
is  beautiful,  as  in  Greece  it  was  beautiful,  the  coming 
civilisation  will  lack  one  mark  of  the  civilised  man.  And 
Theosophy  teaches  reverence  for  beauty,  whether  it  be 
natural  beauty  or  beauty  formed  by  the  skilful  fingers 
and  keen  brains  of  men — reverence  for  the  human  body. 


202  THE    CHANGING   WORLD 

No  nation  has  a  right  to  breed  the  bodies  that  we  see  in 
the  population  of  the  slums.  It  is  all  very  well  that  in 
the  richer,  the  upper  classes  you  find  men  and  women 
healthy,  strong,  magnificent  to  look  at;  but  if  they  can 
be  what  they  are,  all  ought  to  be  able  to  share  in  the 
conditions  that  create  that  beauty.  And  art  will  not 
do  its  duty  until  it  holds  up  for  all  to  see  the  power  that 
resides  in  beauty,  and  its  moulding  influence  on  civilisa- 
tion ;  art  should  be  ever  painting  and  holding  up  to  us 
the  ideal  in  its  beauty,  for  it  is  the  ideal  that  makes  the 
real.  The  artist  should  show  the  ideal,  and  the  crafts- 
man should  reproduce  it;  and  until  your  craftsmen 
honour  their  labour,  there  will  be  very  little  hope  for 
art  to  thrive  amongst  us.  Art  is  no  art  when  it  only 
paints  the  commonplace  and  the  ugly.  Sometimes,  on 
the  walls  of  a  gallery,  you  come  across  a  picture  made 
up  perhaps  of  a  piece  of  cheese,  and  a  boiled  lobster,  and 
a  string  of  onions,  and  one  or  two  corpses  of  birds 
thrown  in  for  the  sake  of  their  plumage.  That  is  not 
art.  Art  is  beauty,  and  to  paint  things  like  that  is  to  de- 
grade art,  no  matter  how  well  they  may  be  reproduced. 
"Oh,'*  I  have  heard  a  person  say,  "how  beautiful  that 
cheese  is.  I  could  cut  it!"  You  can  cut  cheese  any- 
where ;  and  you  don't  want  to  go  to  a  gallery,  and  an  art 
gallery,  so-called,  in  order  to  see  it.  Put  this  beside  the 
pictures  of  the  ancient  masters,  and  see  what  art  means 
and  what  the  travesty  of  art.  Theosophy  has  to  try  to 
breathe  into  the  artist  the  idea  of  the  splendour  of  his 
calling,  the  divinity  of  his  power.  He  can  see  what  we 
cannot  see,  and  hear  what  we  cannot  hear ;  let  him  give 
us  what  we  cannot  reach  for  ourselves,  and  be  again  the 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION  2O3 

priest  of  the  Beautiful  for  men.  Then  shall  the  civilisa- 
tion grow  into  beauty,  human  as  well  as  inanimate,  and 
the  right  place  of  beauty  shall  come  into  our  civilisa- 
tion, the  place  it  held  in  ancient  Greece. 

And  what  shall  Theosophy  do  in  the  coming  civilisa- 
tion for  society  ? — society  as  we  see  it  to-day,  which  is  a 
battle,  not  a  social  order;  which  is  an  anarchy,  not  an 
organism.  I  know  it  is  often  thought  that  changes  will 
only  be  brought  about  by  the  menace  of  the  starving,  by 
the  dread  of  revolution.  Oh,  it  is  not  thus  that  The- 
osophy looks  on  man,  in  whom  it  sees  the  growth  of  a 
spiritual,  a  divine  nature.  You  will  think  me  a  dreamer, 
perhaps ;  and  yet  I  tell  you  a  truth  when  I  say  that  not 
by  the  uprising  of  the  miserable,  but  by  the  self-sacrifice 
of  the  comfortable  will  the  future  society  be  realised  on 
earth.  I  know  that  that  is  not  the  idea  of  to-day.  I 
know  that,  amongst  those  who  suffer,  such  a  sentiment 
would  be  met  with  ridicule  and  scoff ;  but  it  is  not  those 
who  suffer  misery  who  can  build  a  wise  and  happy  social 
system.  It  wants  the  best  brains  and  the  best  hearts; 
■it  wants  leisure  to  think  out  and  to  plan,  and  love  to 
carry  into  effect.  You  can  make  a  riot,  you  can  make  a 
revolution  by  starving  desperate  people,  but  there  is  no 
stability  in  that  which  follows  revolution.  You  cannot 
take,  but  you  can  give ;  and  the  spirit  lives  by  giving,  and 
knows  the  joy  of  sacrifice.  Do  you  imagine  that  sacrifice 
is  painful,  that  sacrifice  means  sadness  and  gloom?  I 
tell  you  there  is  no  joy  on  earth  like  the  sacrifice  of  the 
lower  nature  to  the  higher,  and  the  giving  to  others  of 
the  higher,  that  asks  nothing  for  itself.  Along  those 
lines  our  Social  Redemption  will  come,  along  the  lines  of 


204  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

those  who  are  willing  to  give  and  willing  to  sacrifice,  for 
the  gift  that  is  compelled  by  law  pr  force  is  always  re- 
sented, and  is  resisted  as  much  as  possible.  Outer  com- 
pulsion is  met  by  violent  resistance,  but  the  inner  com- 
pulsion that  is  the  compulsion  of  love,  that  meets  with  no 
violence  in  resistance;  it  pours  itself  out  in  joy.  And 
there  lies  the  future,  there  the  basis  of  the  coming 
civilisation. 

I  said,  in  the  beginning,  it  would  be  built  on  self-sacri- 
fice, and  that  was  the  thought  that  lay  behind  the  words. 
I  see,  spreading  through  the  comfortable,  through  the 
rich,  those  who  are  well  dowered  with  the  goods  of  earth, 
a  spirit  of  noble  discontent,  not  for  themselves  but  for 
others,  not  for  themselves  but  for  the  poor.  I  come 
across  the  rich  and  highly-placed  who  ask,  "What  can 
we  do  to  relieve  the  misery  we  see?" — who  suffer  by 
sympathy,  not  by  compulsion;  and  it  is  from  them  the 
redemption  of  society  will  come.  It  seems,  perhaps,  to- 
day a  far-off  dream,  but  man  grows  faster  than  we  are 
apt  to  realise.  There  is  nothing  too  noble,  nothing  too 
beautiful,  nothing  too  divine  for  man  to  achieve;  for 
man  is  growing  godlike,  however  slowly,  and  the  seed  of 
Deity  within  him  is  beginning  to  flower  in  some  hearts. 
Wherever  one  who  does  not  suffer  is  unhappy  for  those 
who  do;  wherever  a  human  brain  that  might  amuse 
itself  finds  joy  in  labour  for  the  helping  of  the  nation ; 
wherever  a  human  heart  which  has  all  that  love  can  give 
it  cannot  be  happy,  but  goes  out  in  love  to  the  outcast — 
there  lies  the  promise  of  the  future.  Such  brains  and 
hearts  were  counted  by  units,  perhaps,  even  a  century 
ago,  by  tens  a  little  later;  they  are  beginning  to  be 


PLACE  OF  THEOSOPHY  IN  THE  COMING  CIVILISATION  205 

counted  by  hundreds  now,  and  to  be  found  in  places 
where  none  may  dream  that  there  are  those  who  are 
longing  to  give  and  strive  for  a  better  social  state.  In 
those  who  are  growing  into  the  spiritual  life;  in  those 
who  cannot  be  happy  while  others  are  miserable;  in 
those  whose  meals  are  rendered  bitter  by  the  starvation 
of  the  poor ;  in  those  whose  luxury  is  a  burden  because 
of  the  want  of  the  miserable — in  those  will  you  find  the 
builders  of  the  new  civilisation,  those  who  shall  sacri- 
fice that  others  may  be  happy.  That  is  the  future  to 
which  we  look,  that  the  future  for  which  we  labour,  pro- 
claiming everywhere  the  ancient  words  that  "joy  lives 
in  giving,  and  not  in  taking";  repeating  again  the  old 
message,  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive"; 
saying  once  again  the  old  truth,  that  only  where  self- 
sacrifice  is  found,  there  is  also  found  a  religion  and  a 
civilisation  that  can  endure. 


Part  II 
Lectures  to   Theosophical  Students 


Lecture  I 
The  Sixth  Sub-Race 

I  HAVE  chosen  for  the  subject  of  my  lecture  to-night  one 
which  I  think  is  important — the  Sixth  Sub-Race.  Both 
outside  and  inside  the  Theosophical  Society  a  certain 
amount  of  good-humoured  ridicule  has  been  cast  on  the 
way  in  which  Theosophists  talk  about  Races,  Sub-Races, 
Root-Races,  Cycles,  Rounds,  and  so  on,  some  people 
condemning  such  talk  as  exceedingly  unpractical.  Really 
that  is  not  so.  When  our  great  teacher  H.  P.  Blavatsky 
traced  for  us  The  Secret  Doctrine,  that  wonderful 
panorama  of  the  past  evolution  of  the  Races  on  our 
globe,  she  was  not  only  giving  us  the  story  of  the  past, 
but  also  presenting  us  with  the  key  to  the  future.  And 
I  propose  to-night  to  try  to  show  you  how  it  is  possible 
for  the  Theosophist  who  has  carefully  studied  the  prin- 
ciples underlying  past  evolution,  to  apply  these  to  the 
evolution  of  the  future,  and  so  learn  how  he  may  best 
co-operate  with  the  divine  plan  which  is  slowly  work- 
ing itself  out.  The  advantage  of  Theosophical  teach- 
ing is  that  it  gives  us  a  definite  scheme  into  which  the 
evolution  of  mankind,  stage  by  stage,  fits  without  diffi- 
culty and  without  blunder. 

Now,  if  we  think  for  a  moment  of  what  we  call  the 
209  14 


2IO  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

larger  and  the  smaller  cycles,  we  can  realise  that  the 
large  scheme  of  the  Races,  the  smaller  scheme  of  the 
sub-racfes,  and  the  evolution  of  man  himself,  all  go  along 
parallel  lines.  Understanding  one,  we  can  understand 
all.  I  will  pause  on  the  evolution  of  the  Races,  in  order 
to  remind  you  of'the  repetition,  within  the  limit  of  each 
race,  of  the  smaller  sub-races.  We  need  not  go  very  far 
back.  It  will  be  enough  to  consider  the  Race  that  pre- 
ceded our  own,  the  great  fourth  Root  Race,  and  our 
own.  The  fourth  Root  Race  was  the  Atlantean.  I  only 
allude  to  it  in  order  to  remind  you  that  from  the  midst 
of  that  race  the  Fifth  Race,  in  its  turn,  arose.  Now  the 
choosing  out  of  a  new  Race  is  the  task  of  a  particular 
Personage  in  the  Occult  Hierarchy,  whose  only  name, 
so  far  as  we  know  it,  is  that  which  has  been  borrowed 
from  the  Hindu,  the  Manu,  the  Man,  or  the  Thinker,  the 
ideal  or  typical  man.  The  Manu  forms  in  His  own  mind, 
after  the  master  conception  of  the  Planetary  Logos,  the 
plan  of  the  man  that  is  to  be,  which  He  will  gradually 
realise  along  the  lines  of  natural  evolution.  These  laws 
of  evolution  are  used  by  the  Manu  with  scientific  knowl- 
edge, and  therefore  with  certainty.  In  the  same  way  that 
a  scientific  breeder,  dealing  with  the  animal  kingdom, 
can  breed  towards  a  desired  type,  so,  on  a  higher  plane, 
does  the  Manu  of  the  Race  mould  by  the  same  laws  of 
evolution  the  physical  form  of  the  Race  He  desires  to 
evolve.  And  always  the  type  is  formed  in  the  matter  of 
the  higher  planes  before  it  is  reproduced  in  the  matter 
of  the  lower,  the  mental  and  emotional  characteristics 
being  first  conceived,  and  then  a  physical  body  which 
will  best  express  them.     The  Manu  chooses  the  type 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  211 

according  to  the  particular  qualities  which  are  to  be 
evolved,  which  are  marked  out  for  Him  by  the  basic 
plan  of  the  constitution  of  man  himself.  Looking  at 
your  own  nature,  you  have  certain  distinct  departments : 
the  physical  body;  the  astral  body;  the  mental  body; 
the  body  of  the  higher  mind,  the  causal;  and  then  that 
of  the  pure,  compassionate  Reason,  the  buddhic.  Now 
if  we  take  those  three  types,  the  emotional,  mental,  and 
truddhic,  we  have  the  three  with  which  we  are  im- 
mediately concerned.  Desire,  or  emotion,  was  the  great 
characteristic  of  the  fourth  Race.  The  mind  was  the 
slave  of  the  lower  feelings ;  that  race  hati  as  its  motive 
power  the  development  of  the  desire  nature.  But  in 
the  sub-races  of  the  fourth  Race  the  other  principles 
had  also  to  be  evolved,  but  to  a  very  poor  degree ;  and  as 
time  went  on,  the  fifth  sub-race  of  that  began  to  develop 
the  lower  mind.  Out  of  that  fifth  sub-race  the  selection 
of  the  Manu  of  the  time  was  made,  and  He  chose  out 
certain  families  that  He  thought  He  could  shape  into 
the  required  type.  The  first  choice  was  not  successful, 
the  people  proving  too  stiff-necked  and  too  little  plastic 
to  be  moulded  into  the  Race  that  was  to  be ;  but  it  left 
behind  it,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  that  marvellously 
interesting  people,  the  Hebnew,  and  that  idea  of  being  a 
"chosen  people'*  survives  even  to  this  day.  The  second 
and  successful  selection  had  as  its  issue  our  own  fifth 
Root  Race.  Now,  side  by  side  with  the  evolution  of  the 
sub-race,  came  the  evolution  of  the  Root  Race  which 
was  to  succeed,  and  that  is  why  I  have  referred  to  the 
past.  As  the  fifth  sub-race  of  the  fourth  Root  Race 
was  developed,  the  beginnings  of  the  fifth  Root  Race, 


212  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

the   great   Aryan   Race,    apepared   one   million   years 
ago. 

We  can  leave  our  fourth  Race  with  its  sub-races, 
having  only  regarded  it  for  the  purpose  of  throwing 
light  on  the  present.  The  evolution  of  the  fifth  Race 
went  on,  and  sub-race  after  sub-race  was  born.  The 
earliest  of  all  settled  in  Northern  India,  and  gradually 
conquered  that  great  peninsula,  the  first  sub-race  of  the 
stock  of  the  Aryans.  There  came  out  after  that  the  sec- 
ond sub-race,  which  wandered  westward,  as  all  the  later 
sub-races  did ;  then  came  the  third,  the  Iranian ;  then  the 
fourth,  the  Keltic ;  and  the  fifth,  the  Teutonic.  So  far  we 
have  come  in  the  history  of  the  sub-races  of  our  own 
fifth  Root  Race.  Now,  notice  that  these  overlap  each 
other  as  they  develop.  The  first  of  these  sub-races  is  still 
a  mighty  power  in  Asia,  showing  signs  that  its  day  is 
by  no  means  done,  and  that  the  Indians,  if  they  have 
behind  them  a  civilisation  of  iiundreds  of  thousands  of 
years,  have  also  before  them  a  mighty  future,  the  first 
signs  of  which  are  being  seen  in  the  India  of  to-day. 
Signs,  some  encouraging,  some  disturbing  for  a  time, 
are  bfeing  seen  on  every  hand  that  new  life  is  being 
poured  into  its  veins,  signs  of  the  birth  of  a  new  Indian 
nation.  Of  the  second  sub-race  we  have  not  any  nation 
at  the  present  time.  Along  the  Mediterranean  Basin  it 
has  left  many  traces  of  its  civilisation,  which  are  being 
unburied  by  our  archaeologists ;  but  so  little  mark,  so  to 
speak,  did  it  leave  on  history  that  a  large  number  of  its 
wonders  were  deemed  to  be  legends  and  myths.  The 
next  sub-race,  the  great  Persian  race,  is  almost  outworn. 
The  Persians  of  to-day  have  little  in  common  with  the 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  2I3 

Iranian  of  the  past.  The  chief  traces  of  them,  in  fact, 
are  on  the  Indian  continent,  the  Parsis,  a  race  which  has 
dwindled  and  is  gradually  passing  away.  But  when*  we 
come  to  the  fourth  subrrace,  the  Keltic,  we  see  great 
possibilities  in  that  still.  It  gave  birth  to  the*  older 
Greece,  the  country  of  Beauty  and  Philosophy.  It  gave 
birth  also  to  Rome,  with  her  remarkable  ruling  powers. 
It  spread  over  Europe,  founding  one  nation  after  an- 
other from  itself,  and  spreading  into  Ireland  and  Scot- 
land, made  there  possibilities  that  have  not  yet  all  flow- 
ered into  effect.  In  Ireland  you  have  a  strange  mingling 
of  the  remains  of  the  fourth  Root  Race  with  the  fourth 
sub-race  of  the  fifth;  a  great  deal  of  the  Atlantean  in- 
fluence still  exists,  many  of  the  tutelary  deities  of  Ire- 
land, the  gods  of  the  mountains,  being  largely  they 
who  mingled  with  Atlantean  life  and  thought,  and  are 
still  exercising  their  potent  influences  over  the  younger 
though  still  ancient  Keltic  sub-race.  There,  again,  we 
have  great  possibilities  of  revival  and  of  growth,  for  the 
fourth  sub-race  and  the  sixth  sub-race  are  necessarily 
interlinked.  Just  as  the  emotional  nature  stretches  up- 
v/ards  and  causes  sympathetic  action  in  the  spiritual 
nature,  ^o  with  the  Races  and  sub-races  that  represent 
these  principles  upon  earth;  the  fourth  and  the  sixth 
Races,  like  the  fourth  and  sixth  sub-races,  are  closely 
intertwined.  Ireland  has  not  been  kept  apart  for 
nothing ;  the  separation  between  the  Kelt  and  the  Teuton 
is  not  without  its  meaning.  We  shall  find  among  that 
Keltic  people  possibilities  of  spiritual  power,  and  we 
may  look  possibly  for  some  mighty  influence  to  flow 
thence  into  the  great  Christian  organisation  of  Rome, 


214  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

who  is  now  on  the  balance  as  to  whether  she  is  to  sink 
down  along  the  line  that  the  Papal  Encyclical  seems  to 
trace  for  her  and  become  the  enemy  of  the  Spirit  of  the 
Age,  or  whether  the  Modernist  party  in  the  Roman 
Church  is  to  rise  into  power,  purify  and  vivify  that  an- 
cient Communion,  and  make  her  again  what  she  ought 
to  be,  the  Church  of  Saints,  the  type  and  symbol  of  the 
purest  and  loftiest  form  of  Christian  thought.  It  may 
be  that  Ireland  will  co-operate  also  in  the  great  purifica- 
tion which  I  pray  may  come  to  the  Roman  Communion, 
and  make  its  revival  possible.  And  that  is  closely  con- 
nected with  the  sixth  Root  Race,  and  therefore  partly 
with  the  sixth  sub-race. 

Now,  after  the  fourth  sub-race  came  our  own;  and 
when  we  find  that  this  fifth  sub-race^,  the  Teutonic,  is 
carrying  on  so  rapidly  the  development  of  the  concrete 
and  scientific  mind,  when  we  notice  that  it  is  beginning 
its  last  conquest,  the  conquest  of  the  air,  then,  if  we 
have  learned  the  lesson  of  the  past,  we  may  learn  to  see 
the  signs  of  the  sub-race  which  is  to  succeed  it.  But 
these  sub-races  overlap  each  other,  and  it  is  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  zenith  of  the  one  that  the  next  is  born. 
Go  back  to  the  zenith  of  the  fourth  sub-race,  when  the 
fifth  was  beginning  to  develop,  when  Rome  was  mighty, 
then  it  was  that  the  Goths  in  German  forests  were  be- 
ginning to  be  born  into  Europe;  and  to  draw  together 
into  tribes,  which  were  to  grow  into  nations.  Quietly 
and  silently  the  new  sub-race  was  being  born  while  its 
predecessor  was  reaching  the  highest  point  of  the  civil- 
ised world  of  its  time.  Slowly  it  began  to  develop  its 
own  peculiarities  and  powers,  and  from  that  day  the 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  215 

Teutonic  sub-race  has  grown  stronger  and  stronger, 
more  and  more  dominant,  and,  though  a  small  minority 
compared  with  the  population  of  the  world,  is  dominat- 
ing that  world  by  the  force  of  its  scientific  mind,  spread- 
ing everywhere,  and  making  itself  the  very  crest  of  the 
advancing  wave. 

But  let  us  turn  away  our  eyes  from  the  dazzling  glow 
of  the  present  to  look  for  the  quiet  places  where  the 
birth  of  the  future  is  beginning  to  appear.  Just  because 
the  fifth  sub-race  is  so  strong  and  dominant,  we  look 
over  the  world  for  the  beginnings  of  its  successor,  which 
shall  rule  the  w^orld  not  by  the  force  of  the  concrete 
mind,  but  by  the  force  of  the  pure  and  compassionate 
Reason,  which  will  conquer  not  by  power  but  by  love, 
not  by  competition  but  by  co-operation,  and  found,  there- 
fore, an  Empire  that  will  long  endure.  For  it  is  true 
now  as  ever  that  "They  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish 
by  the  sword,"  and  the  Empire  that  is  to  live  will  be  the 
Empire  that  wins  its  way  by  love  and  benediction,  that 
is  a  teacher  and  a  defender,  and  not  only  a  ruler.  The 
sixth  sub-race,  the  Coming  Race,  will  be  born  with  the 
sixth  Root  Race  in  it,  which  is  to  grow  so  much  more 
slowly.  The  coming  of  the  sixth  sub-race  you  may 
almost  begin  to  see  around  you.  It  is  not  to  be  born  in 
a  single  place,  not  to  belong  to  a  single  nation,  for  it  is 
the  type  of  humanity,  of  the  unifying  Wisdom,  and  out 
of  all  nations  and  all  peoples  and  all  tongties  it  will 
gather  together  its  chosen  for  the  new  type  of  thought 
which  is  to  be  born.  And  what  that  type  will  be  we  can 
easily  outline  by  thinking  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
buddhic  principle  in  man.    What  are  those  characteris- 


2l6  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

tics  ?  First  of  all,  union,  and  hence  in  the  outer  world  co- 
operation. The  very  essence  of  all  action  in  the  sixth 
sub-race  will  be  the  union  of  many  to  achieve  a  single 
object,  and  not  the  dominance  of  one  who  compels  others 
to  his  will.  The  work  of  the  future  will  not  be,  "Do  so- 
and-so  and  follow  me,"  but,  "Let  us  advance  together  to 
a  goal  that  we  all  realise  as  desirable  of  attainment." 
If  you  are  looking  for  the  sign  of  anyone  who  is  begin- 
ning to  show  the  marks  of  that  sixth  sub-race  to-day, 
you  will  find  it  in  those  who  lead  by  love,  sympathy,  and 
comprehension,  and  not  by  dominance  of  an  imperious 
will ;  for  the  qualities  of  that  sub-race  will  be  found  scat- 
tered here  and  there  through  the  sub-race  which  it  is 
gradually  to  supplant.  You  may  trace  out  the  coming 
of  the  sixth  sub-race  in  the  scattered  people  found  in 
our  fifth  sub-race,  in  whom  tenderness  is  the  mark  of 
power.  Anyone  who  desires  to  take  part  in  the  building 
of  that  race  needs  to  develop  now  the  power  to  work 
with  others  rather  than  against  them,  and  so,  by  a  con- 
tinual common  eflfort,  to  replace  the  spirit  of  antagonism 
and  competition.  It  is  a  synthesising  spirit  which  we 
shall  find  in  the  forerunners  of  our  sixth  sub-race — ^those 
who  are  able  to  unite  diversity  of  opinion  and  of  char- 
acter, who  are  able  to  gather  round  them  the  most  un- 
like elements  and  blend  them  into  a  common  whole,  who 
have  that  capacity  for  taking  into  themselves  diversities 
and  sending  out  again  unities,  and  utilising  the  most  dif- 
ferent capacities,  finding  each  its  place,  and  welding  all 
together  into  a  strong  whole.  That  is  one  of  the  char- 
acteristics which  marks  the  type  of  being  out  of  whom 
this  sixth  sub-race  will  gradually  develop.   A  strongly 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  217 

marked  characteristic  will  be  compassion.  That  virtue 
is  comparatively  rare  in  the  energetic,  strongly  indi- 
vidualised West.  Compassion  is  that  quality  which  is  at 
once  affected  by  the  presence  of  weakness,  answering  to 
it  with  patience,  with  tenderness,  and  with  protection. 
You  may  notice  how  very  often  amongst  ourselves,  tak- 
ing the  ordinary  fifth  sub-race  type,  the  presence  of 
weakness  is  provocative.  It  does  not  call  out  compassion, 
but  impatience — very  characteristic  of  the  fifth  sub-race. 
Quick  to  understand  and  grasp  a  fact,  it  is  impatient  with 
the  weakness  and  mental  dulness  which  cannot  easily  ap- 
preciate the  differences  which  seem  to  it  so  clear.  The 
typical  fifth  sub-race  civilisation  is  a  civilisation  that  sees 
in  weakness  a  field  to  exploit,  a  thing  to  enslave,  some- 
thing to  trample  under  foot,  in  order  to  rise  on  it,  and 
not  to  help  to  exist  for  itself.  "Inevitable,"  you  say,  "in 
a  bustling  civilisation  like  this,  that  the  weak  should  go 
to  the  wall."  I  do  not  deny  that  it  has  been  inevitable  in 
the  development  of  the  strong  individualism  of  the  pres- 
ent. That  individualism  is  a  priceless  result,  cheaply 
bought  even  by  the  suffering  it  has  caused.  Without  that 
strong  individualism  you  would  not  have  the  foundation 
on  which  the  great  co-operative  civilisation  could  be 
built.  For  you  cannot  synthesise  weaknesses,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  make  the  strong  and  patient  individuality  in 
order  that  you  might  have  something  to  blend  together 
into  a  harmony  in  the  future  that  is  yet  to  be  born.  It 
is  a  very  shortsighted  view  of  human  nature  which  sees 
in  the  growth  of  a  particular  quality  a  thing  which  is 
wholly  undesirable ;  for  there  is  nothing  which  is  wholly 
undesirable  in  the  evolution  which  is  guided  by  perfect 


2l8  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

Wisdom  and  perfect  Love.  The  most  unlovely  product 
of  the  fifth  sub-race  civilisation  will  be  one  of  the  bricks 
that  will  be  built  into  the  foundation  of  the  sixth  sub- 
race  and  of  the  sixth  Root  Race.  For  out  of  the  strong- 
individuality  the  strong  virtues  can  be  built,  and  com- 
passion is  a  virtue  of  the  strong,  and  not  of  the  weak. 
The  feeble,  sentimental  sympathy  that  comes  with  the 
poor  and  undeveloped  nature  is  not  compassion.  It  has 
no  power  of  healing  in  it,  and  no  power  of  protection. 
The  person  who,  seeing  a  suffering  or  wrong,  or  even  a 
physical  accident,  goes  into  hysterics  over  it,  is  not  the 
strong  helper  who  heals  and  protects.  It  is  not  the 
skilful  nurse  who  goes  into  hysterics  over  the  agony  of 
the  patient  in  pain,  leaving  that  patient  to  suffer  while 
she  is  having  the  cheap  luxury  of  sentimental  tears.  It 
is  only  out  of  the  strong  natures  you  can  build  up  real 
compassion.  The  compassion  which  does  not  help  is 
useless,  and  help  can  only  be  given  where  knowledge 
guides  feeling,  and  understanding  shapes  the  remedy. 
Hence  out  of  these  strong  individualities,  when  their 
object  has  been  changed  and  the  greater  Self  has  taken 
the  place  of  the  smaller  self,  out  of  those  the  sixth  sub- 
race,  which  has  pure  Reason  for  its  dominating  principle, 
will  gradually  appear.  When  in  yourselves  you  find  the 
germs  of  compassion,  and  know  that  that  is  to  be  part 
of  the  dominating  characteristic  of  the  coming  sub-race, 
then  cherish  these  germs  to  the  utmost.  But  remember 
that  they  must  grow  out  of  the  germinal  feeling  of 
sympathy  into  the  strong  power  to  uplift  and  to  save; 
for  compassion  is  the  great  mark  of  the  Saviour.  And 
the  Saviour  is  never  weak,  but  strong,  and  out  of  his 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  2ig 

Strength  grows  his  compassion.  You  can  test  it  for 
yourself.  Having  to  deal  with  someone  who  is  very  slow, 
you  are  impatient.  Why?  Because  you  are  weak.  You 
are  not  strong  enough  to  make  a  question  clear  with 
slow  and  deliberate  intent,  not  strong  enough  to  bear 
with  the  stupidity  and  feebleness. 

The  next  great  thing  you  want  is  the  sense  of  unity, 
and  that  you  can  never  have  unless  you  are  strong. 
There  is  nothing  harder  in  the  world  than  to  pierce 
through  a  man's  weakness  and  his  poor  qualities,  which 
are  on  the  surface,  and  to  see  within  the  growing  power 
of  the  God.  Yet  that  is  what  you  have  to  do  if  you 
would  be  truly  wise.  You  see  in  the  people  around  you 
to-day  a  large  number  of  faults.  How  far  do  you  see 
behind  every  fault  the  seed  of  divinity  which  will  develop 
into  a  virtue?  Has  the  old  Platonic  idea  ever  struck  you, 
that  there  is  no  strong  dividing  line  between  the  vice 
and  virtue  except  the  quantity  which  is  present?  The 
undeveloped  virtue  is  a  vice ;  the  virtue  in  excess  is  also 
a  vice.  The  golden  mean  between  the  two  is  the  virtue 
Take  a  common  illustration — cowardice  on  one  side, 
recklessness  on  the  other.  Courage  is  the  mean  between 
the  two.  And  so  in  everything  excess  is  vice,  whether 
a  defect  or  a  surplusage,  and  the  perfect  equilibrium 
between  them  alone  is  virtue.  If  you  would  realise  that 
for  yourselves,  wherever  you  see  a  vice  in  your  neigh- 
bour, you  will  look  through  the  vice  to  the  virtue  that 
shall  be,  and  in  the  greatest  faults  of  the  present  you 
learn  to  see  the  promise  of  the  future.  You  find  a  per- 
son intolerant.  He  thinks  you  are  a  fool  because  you 
cannot  see  the  same  way  as  he.  This  is  apt  to  wake  in 


220  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

you  a  similar  intolerance.  But  if  you  saw  through  the 
intolerance  the  growing  though  undeveloped  love  of 
virtue,  if  you  saw  through  the  intolerance  the  passionate 
desire  to  find  the  right  and  do  it,  the  passionate  hatred 
of  all  that  does  not  seem  right,  you  would  be  very 
patient ;  for  presently  the  flower  of  the  virtue  will  blos- 
som out  and  show  the  beauty  which  all  the  time  was 
within.  You  hear  abuse,  or  slander,  or  calumny.  You 
think  it  is  hateful.  But  the  person  who  is  doing  it  in 
his  ignorance  is  mistaken,  and  that  is  a  reason  for  com- 
passion, and  not  for  anger.  The  more  cruel  the  igno- 
rance may  make  a  person,  the  greater  the  demand  for  the 
compassion,  which,  because  it  understands  all,  overcomes 
all;  nay,  does  not  even  overcome,  because  to  overcome 
would  mean  separation;  but  realises  the  unity  between 
oneself  and  another,  and  takes  the  weakness  of  another 
as  one's  own.  Now  these  things  are  well  enough  known 
in  principle.  Why  not  practise  them  ?  Why,  in  difficulties 
like  those  we  have  been  passing  through,  should  there  be 
angry  words  on  both  sides?  The  Theosophist  who  un- 
derstands has  no  room  for  anger,  but  only  room  for  com- 
passion. These  are  the  things  that  in  the  sixth  sub-race 
we  shall  want.  All  these  must  begin  to  grow  now,  and 
germinate  in  the  heart  of  every  one  of  you  who  would 
take  part  in  the  building  of  that  coming  sub-race.  And 
hardest  of  all  to  develop,  in  a  race  where  separateness 
has  been  the  type  of  greatness,  is  the  sense  of  unity.  This 
sense  of  unity  and  of  compassion  will  be  a  strength  and 
power  which  is  only  one  for  service,  which  makes  the 
measure  of  strength  the  measure  of  responsibility  and 
of  duty.  And  so  your  character  will  be  marked — if  you 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  221 

are  a  candidate  for  the  sixth  sub-race — will  be  marked 
by  a  great  sense  of  duty,  and  a  great  indifference  to  what 
are  called  "rights."  There  is  a  splendid  word  of  Mazzini 
that  "every  right  grows  out  of  a  duty  discharged." 
That  is  utterly  true.  It  is  the  discharge  of  duty  out  of 
which  inevitably  the  right  grows,  and  then  the  right 
comes  not  by  combat,  but  by  the  inevitable  necessity  of 
nature.  Because  where  everyone  discharges  his  duty, 
everyone  enjoys  his  rights  without  conflict  and  with- 
out demand.  The  mark  of  our  own  sub-race  is  the  de- 
manding of  our  rights.  But  to  those  who  know  the  law 
of  karma  there  is  nothing  that  need  be  claimed,  because 
you  possess  all  which  is  yours.  The  karma  brings  to 
you  everything  to  which  you  have  a  right;  and  if  what 
is  called  an  injustice  is  done  you,  it  is  only  the  balancing 
up  of  an  ancient  wrong.  You  think  people  can  hurt  you. 
Then  you  do  not  believe  in  the  law  of  karma.  It  is  your 
own  hand  that  strikes  you,  and  no  one  else's.  No  one 
can  injure  you  or  wrong  you,  no  one  can  commit  any 
injustice  against  you.  The  whole  of  that  which  you 
suflfer  comes  out  of  your  past.  These  people  are  mere 
puppets  who  come  forward  to  claim  the  debt  that  you 
have  to  pay.  If  you  really  believed  that,  then  the  man 
who  demands  a  debt  from  you  would  be  your  friend 
whom  you  would  welcome ;  for  karma's  debts  are  never 
demanded  twice.  There  is  no  error  in  her  account. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  hardly  any  of  you  believe  it  in 
actual  life.  What  you  profess  does  not  make  one  scrap 
of  difference.  You  do  not  believe  unless  you  live  what 
you  say  you  believe.  And  if  you  believed  it,  you  would 
know  that  no  slander  could  wrong  you,  no  injury  hurt 


222  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

you,  and  that  the  words  of  the  Christ  on  His  way  to  His 
Passion  were  absolutely  true:  "You  could  do  nothing 
at  all  against  me  except  it  were  given  you  from  above." 
That  is  the  secret  of  the  patience  of  the  Christs;  they 
know  the  law,  they  live  by  it  and  accept  it.  And  that 
utter  belief  in  Law,  and  therefore  the  recognition  of 
duty,  that  is  another  of  the  great  marks  of  the  race  that 
is  to  be.  Every  one  of  you  who  works  that  out  now  in 
life,  who,  in  face  of  an  apparent  wrong,  is  calm  and  re- 
ceptive, who  takes  an  injustice  as  a  debt  that  is  paid  and 
cancelled,  that  man  or  woman  is  a  candidate  for  the 
coming  sub-race,  and  for  the  Root  Race  that  shall  be 
gathered  out  of  its  midst.  For  the  sixth  Root  Race  is  to 
be  taken  out  of  the  sixth  sub-race  that  is  now  being  bom, 
and  according  to  the  qualities  you  make  in  yourselves 
will  be  the  effectiveness  of  your  candidature  for  both. 

And  now  look  at  another  side  of  that  growing  sub-race. 
I  have  laid  most  stress  on  qualities,  because  qualities 
shape  form;  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  bodies  of  that 
sub-race  will  show  a  different  type  from  the  bodies  of 
the  present — will  be  far  more  sensitive  to  all  the  finer 
vibrations  of  matter,  built  up  within  the  finer  aggrega- 
tions. And  side  by  side  with  the  development  of  the 
finer  and  more  nervous  physical  body  will  be  inevitably 
the  greater  organisation  of  the  body  that  comes  next, 
the  astral,  with  its  corresponding  senses.  Now  notice 
how  in  the  difference  between  the  fourth  and  fifth  Root 
Races  it  is  the  nervous  system  which  is  the  greatest 
physical  difference.  Compare  the  nervous  system  of  a 
Chinaman,  or  Japanese,  with  the  nervous  system  of  an 
Aryan,  and  you  will  see  the  enormous  gulf  that  separates 


THE  SIXTH   SUB-RACE  223 

the  two  Races.  A  fourth  Race  man  will  recover  easily 
from  a  tremendous  laceration  that  would  have  killed 
a  fifth  Race  man  by  mere  nervous  shock,  and  it  is  in 
your  nervous  system  that  there  will  be  the  great  differ- 
ence between  the  fifth  and  sixth  Root  Races,  and  the 
change  will  show  in  the  sixth  sub-race.  You  have  to 
solve  one  of  the  hardest  physical  problems;  to  have  a 
sensitive,  delicate,  complicated  nervous  system  hand  in 
hand  with  complete  health.  You  can  easily  strain  your 
system  into  sensitiveness,  but  that  is  different  to  refining 
it  into  sensitiveness,  making  it  responsive  to  the  most 
delicate  vibrations  from  without,  but  with  a  perfect 
sanity  and  health.  On  that  you  can  also  work.  By  the 
deliberate  use  of  meditation  for  the  refining  of  the  brain 
you  can  gradually  build  up — if  you  do  not  carry  it  to 
excess — ^an  extreme  sensitiveness,  and  at  the  same  time 
perfect  balance  and  sanity  and  health.  You  must  not 
think  that  with  fifth  Race  bodies  you  can  bring  about  at 
once  sixth  Race  characteristics;  but  within  the  limita- 
tions imposed  upon  you  by  your  fifth  Race  bodies  you 
can  gradually  develop  an  increasing  sensitiveness  which 
will  react  on  the  astral  body,  and  organise  and  develop 
that  at  the  same  time.  And  you  will  find,  if  you  will 
notice  the  people  round  you,  that  there  are  being  born 
at  the  present  time  more  and  more  children  who  show 
this  delicate  sensitiveness,  hand  in  hand  with  generosity, 
with  tenderness,  with  broadness  of  mind,  with  quick  and 
keen  intelligence.  These  are  children  who  will  gradually 
develop  into  the  type  of  the  new  sub-race.  When  they 
become  numerous,  and  become  fathers  and  mothers  in 
their  turn,  then  they  will  gradually  prepare  for  the  birth 


224  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

of  the  children  who  will  belong  to  the  sixth  Root  Race. 
Within  the  one  the  other  will  be  born.  Hence  all  of  you 
who  are  parents  will  do  rightly  and  wisely  to  study 
carefully  the  characters  and  types  of  the  children  whom 
karma  places  in  your  hands  for  training.  If  you  see  in 
them  the  dawning  powers  of  the  coming  sub-race,  this 
greater  sensitiveness,  this  tendency  to  see  where  many 
are  blind,  do  not  force  it  by  unwise  admiration,  do  not 
check  it  by  equally  unwise  unbelief.  Let  the  children  of 
to-day  grow  up  among  the  healthiest  possible  conditions, 
but  also  amongst  the  most  refined  that  you  can  give  them. 
Remember  that  in  the  training  of  the  higher  emotions 
beauty  is  an  essential  factor,  and  that  without  the 
bringing  of  beauty  into  home  and  daily  life  the  birth  and 
growth  of  the  coming  sub-race  will  be  hindered.  You 
have  to  war  against  the  ugliness  of  the  present-day 
civilisation.  You  have  to  strengthen  the  tendencies 
which  are  beginning  to  show  themselves,  and  which 
make  for  beauty.  You  must  realise  that  beauty  is  an 
essential  part  of  utility ;  and  that  it  is  the  most  narrow- 
minded  utility  which  thinks  that  beauty  can  be  left  on 
one  side,  and  that  the  ugliness  in  daily  life  is  not  a 
retarding  factor  in  the  growth  of  the  more  refined  sub- 
race  that  will  partially  take  birth  amongst  us.  These 
are  very  practical  things.  They  deal  with  your  daily 
life,  with  the  home  of  every  one  of  you,  and  the  duties 
that  fall  upon  you  there.  You  must  not  let  your  The- 
osophy  be  outside  your  daily  life.  If  Theosophy  is  to 
be  the  moulding  force  of  the  race  that  is  to  be  born,  it 
must  show  itself  out  in  your  lives,  in  your  thought  and 
action.     It  is  the  great  privilege  of  the  Theosophical 


THE   SIXTH    SUB-RACE  22$ 

Society  to  be  the  nucleus  of  that  coming  Root  Race,  and 
amongst  our  members  there  should  be  some  at  least 
ready  to  take  part  in  the  building  of  the  sixth  sub-race. 
You  would  not  be  amongst  us  if  you  had  not  had  in  you 
something  to  draw  you  along  the  lines  of  this  swifter 
evolution.  You  hardly  appreciate  the  forces  of  the  past 
which  have  brought  you  into  the  Society.  Some  come 
in  and  drop  out  again.  They  are  those  who  are  coming 
in  touch  with  it  for  the  first  time.  Others  come  in  and 
stay  in  for  years,  and  then  drop  out.  They  are  in  a 
stage  a  little  further  on,  and  have  been  in  it  before,  and 
will  return  to  it  in  lives  to  come.  There  are  some  who, 
gripped  by  it  from  the  beginning,  never  move  again  in 
their  utter  fealty  to  its  ideals,  whom  no  personalities  can 
throw  out  of  it,  who  belong  to  Theosophy  rather  than 
have  Theosophy  belonging  to  them.  These  are  they 
who  have  been  in  it  many  a  time  before,  and  will  come 
into  it  again,  to  live  and  die  in  it  over  and  over  again, 
life  after  life.  Well  for  you  who  are  here  to-day  that 
in  the  trials  of  the  last  few  years  you  have  not  allowed 
personalities  to  blind  you  to  principles,  nor  real  or 
imaginary  faults  in  persons  to  make  you  shrink  in  your 
loyalty  to  Theosophy  itself.  Persons  die;  principles 
live.  Men  and  women  pass  away  with  their  virtues  and 
faults,  but  the  Theosophical  Society  will  endure  genera- 
tion after  generation.  Well  for  you  if  in  the  storm  you 
have  been  able  to  stand  firm ;  great  the  benediction  that 
comes  upon  you  that  in  the  day  of  trial  you  have  not 
denied  your  Master,  in  the  day  of  suffering  you  have  not 
forsaken  and  fled  away. 

15 


Lecture  II 
The   Immediate   Future 

You  may  remember  that  when  we  last  met  I  spoke  to 
you  about  the  sixth  sub-race,  and  my  speech  this  evening 
turns  on  the  same  set  of  ideas,  although  from  a  different 
standpoint,  rather  more  special  to  the  Society  than  to  the 
world  at  large.  In  this  lecture  I  am  concerned  rather 
with  the  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Theosophical  Society 
which  was  held  in  its  earliest  days,  dropped  a  little  out 
of  sight,  and  is  now  being  very  generally  recalled,  so 
that  the  Society  should  rise  to  the  height  of  its  oppor- 
tunity and  do  the  work  that  lies  before  it  in  the  immediate 
future.  If  you  will  turn  back  to  the  days  of  H.  P. 
Blavatsky  in  India  you  will  find  she  was  fond  of  dwelling 
on  a  particular  relation  held  by  two  of  the  Masters, 
primarily  to  the  Society,  and  secondarily  to  the  coming 
civilisation  of  which  the  Society  is  the  herald.  She  used 
to  refer  her  Hindu  friends  to  the  statements  in  their  own 
Puranas,  in  which  it  was  said  that  two  Kings  would 
come  at  the  end  of  the  Age,  and  that  to  them  would  be 
given  the  kingdom  of  the  new  and  opening  Age.  These 
statements,  which  are  often  repeated,  raised  in  the 
hearers  the  inquiry,  "Who  are  the  two  Kings?"  and 
then  she  gave  them  a  hint  that  the  two  Kings  of  the 

226 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  227 

Puranas  were  the  two  Masters  who  were  the  real 
Founders  of  the  Theosophical  Society.  That  set  the 
keen  brains  of  the  students  to  work.  They  promptly 
began  to  try  and  find  out  what  were  the  names  of  the 
two  Kings.  One  of  these  students  found  it,  wrote  a 
paper,  which  was  published  with  H.  P.  Blavatsky's  ap- 
proval, giving  the  names  of  the  two  Kings — Moru  and 
Devapi — two  names  mentioned  in  many  of  the  Puranas 
in  relation  to  the  past  history  of  the  Hindus,  one  of  them, 
Moru,  belonging  to  the  Solar  Dynasty,  descending  di- 
rectly from  Rama,  one  of  the  Avataras — that  before 
Shri  Krshna — a  great  King,  said  to  have  retired  from  his 
throne  and  to  have  gone  to  Shamballa,  there  to  wait  until 
he  was  recalled  to  lead  the  human  race ;  the  other,  whose 
name  was  given  as  Devapi,  was  the  elder  brother  of  the 
famous  King  of  the  Lunar  Dynasty,  to  which  the  next 
Avatara  belonged.  He  was  the  elder  brother  of  the 
father  of  Bhishma,  and  he  similarly  gave  up  his  right 
to  the  crown,  retired  to  the  same  place,  and  the  same 
phrase  is  used  with  regard  to  him,  that  he  was  to  wait 
there  the  coming  age.  Now  H.  P.  Blavatsky  was  very 
m.uch  delighted  at  the  ingenuity  of  her  students,  and  said 
that  the  outline  was  correct,  and  it  was  published.  H.  P. 
Blavatsky  often  referred  to  this  function  of  the  two 
Masters  who  were  responsible  for  the  founding  of  the 
Society.  As  in  these  latter  days  that  idea  of  the  Masters 
as  the  Founders  of  the  Society  has  been  challenged,  I 
may  perhaps  say  I  have  myself  seen  that  fact  stated  in 
the  writing  of  the  Master  "M."  I  have  read  the  letter 
in  which  He  says  that  He  and  His  fellow  Adept  "K.  H.*' 
had  taken  on  themselves  the  responsibility  of  a  new 


228  THE   CHANGING    WORLD 

spiritual  movement  in  the  world;  that  there  was  some 
doubt  in  the  Lodge  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  movement 
at  that  time;  and  that  they  were  allowed  to  take  that 
step  only  on  the  condition  that  they  should  found  and 
work  the  Society  through  others  whom  they  could  direct 
and  control.  Then  He  went  on  to  say  that  He  had 
chosen  a  disciple  of  his  own,  H.  P.  Blavatsky,  and  that 
He  h^d  sent  her  to  America  to  look  for  another  disciple, 
H.  S.  Olcott,  and  that  these  were  the  outer  founders  of 
the  Society.  Hence  to  me  and  to  many  others  who 
believe  that  these  letters  are  genuine  the  nature  of  the 
origin  of  the  Society  cannot  be  a  matter  of  doubt. 

Starting,  then,  from  that  standpoint,  we  find  certain 
things  were  said  by  H.  P.  Blavatsky  as  regards  the 
nature  of  the  Society,  and  certain  things  by  the  Masters 
themselves.  Both  are  very  important  for  us  in  con- 
sideration of  the  immediate  future.  The  first  of  these 
things  was  indicated  by  hints  which  the  more  advanced 
students  could  understand — ^that  the  inner  purpose  of 
the  Society  was  to  prepare  the  world  for  the  coming  of 
a  new  Race,  and  to  be  itself  the  nucleus  of  that  Race; 
that  one  of  the  Teachers  was  to  be  the  Manu  of  the 
race,  the  other  the  Bodhisattva.  Now  those  exact  facts 
were  unpublished  at  the  time,  but  they  passed  from  one 
to  the  other  among  the  more  advanced  students  of  that 
period.  Coming  into  the  Society  in  1889,  this  particular 
fact  did  not  come  within  my  knowledge  until  1895. 
After  the  Coulomb  struggle  the  Society  for  a  time 
dropped  away  from  the  occult  path  on  which  H.  P. 
Blavatsky  had  started  it,  and  these  ideas  fell  out  of 
sight  and  were  forgotten  except  by  a  limited  number. 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  229 

In  1895  they  were  re-communicated  to  myself  by  my 
own  Master,  and  have  since  been  passed  on  to  the  older 
members  of  the  Theosophical  Society. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  on  the  statement  with 
regard  to  the  Manu  and  Bodhisattva.  Every  Root  Race 
has  for  its  guide  a  great  Adept,  much  higher  than  the 
great  ones  we  call  the  Masters,  and  that  office  filled  by 
a  mighty  Being  is  an  office  the  name  of  which  indicates 
simply  the  man,  the  thinker.  The  connotation  is  the  ideal, 
typical  man,  making  rather  the  emphasis  on  the  article 
"the."  The  name  is  peculiarly  suitable,  because  each  of 
these  Manus  at  the  head  of  the  Root  Race  is  the  type 
of  the  Race  over  which  he  is  to  preside.  The  types  of 
the  seven  Races  are  part  of  the  plan  of  the  Planetary. 
Logos,  and  that  plan  is  worked  out,  stage  after  stage,  by 
the  Manus  of  the  races.  It  is  left  to  the  Manu  Himself 
how  He  shall  proceed  with  His  work.  He  takes  the 
responsibility  of  the  method  He  chooses.  When  the 
time  comes  to  plan  out  the  new  Race,  then  the  coming 
Manu  begins  to  take  up  His  office,  and  always  in  con- 
nection with  another  great  Brother  of  His  own  rank, 
who  is  called  the  Bodhisattva.  The  Manu  of  the  Fifth 
Race,  as  you  know,  collected  His  people  together  out  of 
the  fifth  sub-race  of  the  Fourth  Root  Race,  sent  out 
messengers  to  call  them  together,  brought  them  together, 
moulded  them  generation  after  generation,  and  at  last 
evolved  them  to  the  necessary  physical  type.  For  the 
work  of  the  Manu  is  double:  to  choose  out  those  who 
show  in  consciousness  the  germs  of  the  new  stage  which 
is  to  evolve  in  the  coming  Race;  then,  having  chosen 
them  out  and  stimulated  that  germ  within  them,  to  set 


230  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

to  work  to  shape  the  necessary  bodies.  Now  in  that  far- 
off  time  our  own  Manu  of  the  fifth  Root  Race  had  to 
choose  materials  out  of  the  fifth  sub-race,  and  He  did 
not  choose  at  all  those  who  were  regarded  as  the  best 
specimens  of  the  day.  Remember  that  the  fourth  sub- 
race,  like  the  fourth  Root  Race  as  a  whole,  showed  out 
very  powerfully  all  the  passional  characteristics  and  the 
psychic  qualities  which  accompanied  them.  It  was  the 
fourth  sub-race,  the  Toltec,  which  made  the  great  Em- 
pire, with  the  city  of  the  Golden  Gate  as  metropolis,  that 
whose  armies  spread  over  the  known  world,  conquering 
everywhere,  and  in  that  sub-race  psychic  qualities  nat- 
urally played  a  great  part.  You  will  remember  that 
at  the  earlier  stage  of  great  emotional  and  passional 
manifestation,  psychic  qualities  are  very  largely  devel- 
oped before  the  development  of  the  lower  mind.  That 
evolution  belongs  to  the  astral  body  as  a  whole,  working 
not  through  the  astral  chakras,  but  through  the  astral 
centres  connected  with  our  physical  senses.  The  fourth 
sub-race  carried  all  that  to  the  highest  point.  Children 
in  the  schools  were  picked  out  for  their  paths  in  life  by 
clairvoyance ;  and  in  all  matters  of  policy,  statecraft,  etc., 
clairvoyants  were  consulted,  so  that  by  the  exercise  of 
the  psychic  qualities  they  might  get  the  best  possible 
knowledge  to  be  had  at  the  time.  Now  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  fifth  sub-race  were  the  diminution  of  psychic 
power  and  the  germinating  of  the  seed  of  mind,  and  these 
two  things  necessarily  went  together,  so  that,  as  that 
fifth  sub-race  developed,  the  people  of  it  were  rather 
looked  down  upon  by  the  highly  evolved  psychic  sub-race 
which  preceded  it.     These  people  seemed  to  be  inferior ; 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  2^1 

they  could  not  use  the  powers  which  put  their  predeces- 
sors in  the  very  forefront  of  civilisation,  and  made  this 
world  and  the  astral  world  almost  one  and  the  same. 
The  children  born  with  very  little  of  these  psychic  pow- 
ers, the  men  and  women  who  showed  still  less  of  it,  were 
by  no  means  thought  to  have  within  them  the  promise  of 
the  future.  Yet  out  of  these  the  Manu  chose  His 
material,  because  they  showed  the  germ  of  the  mind 
which  was  specially  wanted  as  the  characteristic  of  the 
coming  Race.  It  did  not  matter  that  it  was  only  a  germ, 
or  that  they  were  much  less  effective  than  the  people  of 
the  mighty  civilisation  in  which  they  appeared.  He  was 
looking  to  the  future,  and  so  these  people  were  by  no 
means  the  people  whom  the  Atlanteans  of  the  day  would 
have  chosen  if  consulted  in  the  matter.  But  the  great 
people  do  not  always  consult  with  the  smaller  people, 
who  are  so  very  sure  of  the  rightness  of  their  own 
judgment.  They  have  an  uncomfortable  way  of  fol- 
lowing their  own  ideas;  and,  as  the  Master  "M"  once 
said  of  some  people  who  remarked  that  He  did  not  come 
up  to  their  idea  of  an  Adept,  "The  mark  of  the  Adept  is 
not  kept  at  Simla."  And  that  sentence  is  rather  a  good 
one  to  remember.  So  also  the  mark  of  the  disciple  is  not 
kept  in  London  or  in  Chicago,  but  in  a  very  different  part 
of  the  world,  and  to  that  those  who  know  something 
about  it  try  to  conform.  So  the  choice  of  the  Manu  of 
the  day  would  have  been  regarded  as  a  very  poor  one  by 
the  wise  folk  of  the  time.  Nevertheless  he  carried  away 
his  people  and  built  them  up  into  a  great  Race. 

Now  there  is  something  very  instructive  in  that  when 
we  try  to  understand  the  method  of  His  choice  in  the 


232  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

light  of  the  past,  and  the  analogy  of  principles.  For  we 
can  see  that  if  the  germs  of  a  sixth  sub-race — from 
which,  later,  a  sixth  Root  Race  will  be  born — ^are  to  be 
chosen  out  by  Him  from  the  materials  that  the  fifth  sub- 
race  affords,  then  the  nature  of  His  choice  probably  will 
not  be  that  which  would  be  made  by  the  leaders  of  that 
fifth  sub-race  itself.  Theirs  to  carry  on  to  the  highest 
point  the  concrete,  scientific  mind,  which  is  the  glory  of 
their  sub-race.  Theosophists  sometimes  ask:  "Why  do 
not  the  great  men  of  Science  come  into  the  Theosophical 
Society  ?"  Simply  because  they  have  their  own  work  to 
do ;  and  their  work  at  present  is  not  to  build  the  future 
civilisation,  but  to  lead  to  its  highest  point  the  present 
one.  In  the  future,  when  they  shall  have  led  that  civ- 
ilisation to  the  highest  point,  and  when  it  has  taken  its 
place  at  the  head  of  the  world's  thought,  then  will  come 
the  time  for  these  great  minds  to  be  reborn  into  another 
race,  and  build  on  the  splendid  intellectual  foundation 
they  have  laid.  The  work  of  the  world  is  the  end  that 
the  great  Ones  consider,  and  these  strong  scientific  minds 
to-day  are  needed  by  the  world  to  carry  on  the  present 
civilisation  to  the  highest  point.  How  unwise  it  would 
be  to  take  them  away  from  the  work  that  no  one  else  can 
do,  and  set  them  to  other  work  they  would  do  badly,  not 
having  turned  their  energies  to  the  particular  qualifica- 
tions that  are  wanted  for  it.  And  so  in  the  wise  plan 
of  the  Manu  of  the  fifth  Race,  the  flower  of  the  fifth  or 
Teutonic  sub-race  is  taken  in  order  that  it  may  be  raised 
up  to  the  highest  point  of  the  manasic  civilisation,  and  be 
carried  on  to  its  zenith  of  splendour  of  scientific  knowl- 
edge. But  meanwhile  it  is  His  duty  to  help  in  the  build- 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  233 

ing  Up  of  the  other  types — still  his  Race  is  the  sixth  sub- 
race — and  so  to  co-operate  with  His  successor  the  Manu 
of  the  sixth  Root  Race.  For  remember  the  Manu  of  all 
the  sub-races  of  a  Root  Race  is  the  same.  He  is  the 
A  Fanu  of  the  whole  Race ;  when  the  time  comes  for  be- 
ginning the  new  Root  Race,  then  the  Manu  of  the  Race 
that  is  regnant  co-operates  with  the  Manu  of  the  Race 
which  is  to  come.  Hence  He  who  is  to  be  the  Manu  of 
the  sixth  Root  Race,  the  Master  "M,"  the  Moru  of  the 
Puranas,  He  has  begun  His  work.  And  He  has  begun 
it  in  a  humble  and  insignificant  fashion,  as  the  world 
would  say,  by  striking  the  keynote  of  Brotherhood,  and 
by  drawing  into  a  Society  those  whose  hearts  thrill  re- 
sponsive to  that  note.  And  why?  Because  the  higher 
emotion  that  answers  to  universal  Brotherhood,  to  love 
of  all,  without  distinction  of  race,  sex,  caste,  colour,  or 
creed — that  is  the  emotion,  that  is  the  germ  of  the  budd- 
hic  principle  in  man,  the  principle  of  unifying,  of 
drawing  the  separated  together,  of  blending  into  one 
separate  individualities,  and  making  them  realise  the 
spiritual  unity  which  overshadows  and  underlies  them 
all.  Hence  universal  Brotherhood  is  the  only  thing 
which  is  binding  on  members  of  the  Theosophical  Soci- 
ety. Nothing  else.  The  Theosophical  teachings  as  to 
Karma,  Reincarnation,  or  the  Masters,  are  not  binding 
on  the  mind  or  conscience  of  any  member.  This  is  an 
important  point.  It  is  not  only  because  a  truth  is  bet- 
ter seen  by  the  unfettered  intellect  than  by  an  intellect 
on  which  a  dogma  is  imposed,  though  that  is  of  impor- 
tance; but  because  the  material  which  can  be  moulded 
into  the  Coming  Race  is  the  material  that  can  recognise 


234  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  necessity  and  the  beauty  of  universal  Brotherhood, 
and  if  that  be  recognised,  nothing  else  for  the  moment  is 
necessary.  Hence  that  is  the  only  binding  principle. 
Hence,  also,  the  attempts  to  narrow  it  down,  prompted 
by  those  Dark  Powers  who  do  not  desire  that  the  Soci- 
ety should  grow  and  prosper  for  thousands  of  years  to 
come,  the  attempts  to  put  in  a  little  restraint  here  and  a 
little  obstacle  there,  judging  for  the  moment,  and  not  for 
tiie  future.  That  is  the  inner  meaning  of  having  that 
one  thing  alone  our  bond  of  union.  And  so  the  Manu 
made  that  the  keynote  to  attract  those  who  would  an- 
swer, "Yes ;  that  is  the  very  thing  I  want  to  join  in  and 
help."  And  so  the  nucleus  of  the  great  sixth  Root  Race 
began  to  be  formed.  But  that  is  not  an  immediate  fu- 
ture, although  already  beginning.  The  sixth  sub-race  is 
the  immediate  future ;  under  the  rule  of  the  Manu  of  the 
fifth  still,  but  co-operating  with  the  Manu  of  the  Sixth,  i 
in  order  that  those  who  show  signs  of  being  fit  material 
for  the  Coming  Race  may  have  a  preliminary  practise  of 
the  virtues  of  that  race.  Hence  the  stress  that  H.  P. 
Blavatsky  laid  on  this  inner  side  of  the  working  of  the 
Theosophical  Society;  and  hence  the  need,  because  the 
time  is  passing  rapidly,  to  make  public  what  has  been 
kept  private  in  the  past  of  this  inner  purpose,  which  has 
»-eally  dominated  the  Society  from  within,  although  not 
recognised  without. 

Let  us  see  how  that  immediate  future  should  be  recog- 
nised in  its  characteristics,  and  thus  prepared  for.  First 
of  all  we  must  understand  the  words  spoken  long  ago 
under  the  inspiration  of  the  coming  Bodhisattva,  that  the 
Theosophical  Society  was  to  be  "the  corner-stone  of  the 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  235 

future  religion  of  humanity."  Now  every  sub-race  has 
a  special  religion,  as  it  were.  The  religion  of  the  fifth 
sub-race  is  Christianity.  What  is  the  future  religion  of 
humanity  in  this  sense?  It  differs  from  all  that  have 
gone  before.  It  is  no  longer  an  exclusive  and  separatist 
faith,  but  a  recognition  that  in  every  religion  the  same 
truths  are  found ;  that  there  is  only  one  true  religion,  the 
Divine  Wisdom ;  and  that  every  separate  religion  is  true 
just  so  far  as  it  incorporates  the  main  teachings  of  that 
Divine  Wisdom.  The  one  supreme  religion  is  the  Knowl- 
edge of  God ;  to  that  everything  else  is  subsidiary.  Just 
in  so  far  as  any  special  religion  puts  within  the  reach  of 
its  followers  the  means  for  rising  to  that  supreme 
knowledge,  in  so  far  is  that  religion  worthy  of  its  place. 
And  when  that  supreme  test  is  not  thoroughly  answered 
— when  dogmas,  and  ceremonies,  and  rites  become  more 
important  than  this  inner  truth  of  the  gaining  of  indi- 
vidual knowledge  of  the  Supreme — then  the  religion  be- 
comes narrower,  weaker,  unspiritual,  until  a  time  comes 
when  either  the  religion  must  die  or  a  new  impulse  must 
be  poured  into  it  to  bring  it  back  to  its  original  position, 
a  channel  for  the  knowledge  of  God.  Now,  in  the  past 
many  religions  have  done  their  work  and  passed  away, 
and  we  come  to  the  present  time,  when  certain  great 
religions  are  living.  And  when  the  great  new  spiritual 
impulse  came,  it  was  not  charged  with  the  building  of  a 
new  religion,  but  with  the  vitalising  of  those  great  exist- 
ing religions,  to  make  them  realise  their  underlying  foun- 
dation ;  they  were  vivified  in  order  to  help  them  to  rise 
to  a  more  spiritual  and  mystic  interpretation  of  their 
teachings;  and  when  that  was  done,  they  were  to  be 


236  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

blended  together  into  a  brotherhood  of  Religions,  so 
that  all  should  recognise  the  Divine  Wisdom  as  their 
root.  That  was  the  first  work  of  the  Theosophical 
Society.  It  was  done  all  over  the  world.  See  how  in 
India  Hinduism  was  revived ;  in  Ceylon,  Buddhism.  Ask 
the  ordinary  missionary  who  comes  over  here,  who  is  not 
generally  very  broad-minded,  and  he  will  tell  you  that 
the  great  opponent  of  Christianity  in  the  East  is  the 
Theosophical  Society.  Then,  if  you  press  him  and  ask, 
"But  are  Theosophists  antagonistic  to  you?"  "No," 
he  will  say,  "but  they  strengthen  the  other  religions,  and 
thus  prevent  our  making  converts."  And  that  is  true. 
It  is  not  our  business  to  convert  people  from  one  religion 
to  another,  but  to  try  to  make  every  one  realise  the 
splendour  of  his  own  religion.  Naturally,  in  India — 
except  in  Travancore,  where  there  has  been  a  Christian 
Roman  Catholic  colony  from  the  very  early  centuries  of 
the  Church — Christianity  is  an  alien  religion,  and  only 
grows  by  injuring  the  older  religions  of  the  land.  Natur- 
ally, then,  the  missionaries  look  on  the  Theosophical 
Society  as  an  opponent,  because  it  has  been  the  great 
factor  in  the  revival  of  Hinduism,  Buddhism,  Zoroas- 
trianism,  and  is  beginning  to  be  a  factor  in  the  revival 
of  Muhammadanism.  Now,  when  you  see  that,  and 
when  you  come  to  the  West  and  see  how  the  same  in- 
fluence has  been  widening  the  Christian  Church,  how 
mystical  Christianity  is  spreading  everywhere  in  a  way 
that  would  have  seemed  incredible  some  three  years  ago 
— see  how  narrow  it  was,  and  look  now,  how  everywhere 
the  mystic  thought  is  spreading,  and  see  how,  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  spreading  of  this  spirit  has 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  237 

become  so  wide  that  the  Pope  is  forced  into  fulminating 
against  it,  and  in  the  Modernism  that  he  condemns  we 
find  Theosophy  mentioned  as  one  of  the  forms — you  will 
realise  that  that  part  of  the  work  is  almost  done.  I  do 
not  mean  that  we  are  not  to  continue  spreading  abroad 
more  spirtiual  ideas,  but  that  the  work  has  been  done  so 
effectively  already  that  it  is  almost  passing  into  the  hands 
of  the  religions  themselves.  The  clergy  are  now  preach- 
ing so  much  Theosophy  that  it  hardly  seems  necessary 
to  continue  preaching  the  parts  they  have  adopted.  The 
Theosophical  teaching  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Christ  in 
His  birth  in  the  human  form,  and  His  growth  into  Divine 
Manhood — how  common  a  doctrine  that  is  now  within  all 
the  Churches  of  the  West.  The  fact  of  Reincarnation  is 
also  becoming  more  and  more  widely  accepted — a  doc- 
trine no  longer  to  be  laughed  at,  but  to  be  carefully  ar- 
gued over,  and  forming  a  part  of  the  deepest  thought  of 
the  Christian  world.  vSo  that  while  we  must  still  go  on 
with  that  part  of  the  work,  there  are  other  parts  of  our 
work  now  that  we  ought  to  be  ready  to  take  up.  That 
religion  of  the  future  which  is  to  include  all  the  religions 
as  sects  within  itself,  all  of  them  going  on  into  the  future, 
but  recognising  themselves  as  a  Brotherhood,  that  is  to  be 
the  dominant  religious  thought  of  the  great  sixth  Root 
Race,  and  in  the  sixth  sub-race  we  shall  find  it  spreading 
everywhere.  Now,  how  mighty  will  be  the  advantage; 
because  the  moment  all  religions  are  seen  to  be  branches 
of  one  stock,  then  each  religion  can  share  with  others  the 
specialty  which  it  has  been  its  duty  to  develop  in  the 
world.  And  nowadays,  when  the  Christian  goes  to 
India,  instead  of  trying  to  convert  the  Hindu,  which  he 


238  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

can  never  do,  what  he  ought  to  do  is  to  offer  to  share 
with  him  that  great  special  characteristic  of  Christianity, 
the  principle  of  self-sacrifice,  and  the  helping  of  the 
weaker  by  the  stronger — the  dominant  note  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Cross,  the  emblem  of 
self-sacrifice,  of  the  coming  down  to  the  depressed  in 
order  to  lift  them,  leading  them  up  side  by  side  with 
ourselves.  That  is  the  noblest  thought  of  Christendom, 
typified  in  the  mystic  Christ;  and  that  you  might  well 
offer  to  share  with  the  Hindus,  for  that  does  not  come 
out  so  strongly  in  their  great  Faith.  Rather  will  they 
bring  to  you  in  exchange  the  doctrine  of  the  immanence 
of  God.  Two  things,  Dr.  Miller  has  written,  Hinduism 
brings  to  the  world :  the  immanence  of  God,  and  the  soli- 
darity of  man.  When  religions  exchange  their  best  in- 
stead of  finding  out  each  other's  weaknesses,  then  you 
have  outlined  the  religion  of  the  future.  Our  work  in 
that  future  is  to  continue  what  we  have  so  well  begun, 
and  spread  this  liberal,  thoughtful,  religious  ideal 
through  all  religions,  destroying  none,  but  permeating  all. 
Next  we  have  to  consider  what  we  ought  to  do  in  the 
training  of  the  next  generation ;  for  there  is  great  need 
that  the  Theosophical  ideal  of  education  should  spread 
through  Western  minds,  and  especially  through  Britain 
and  its  empire.  Religious  education  at  the  present  time 
is  in  peril ;  how  great  that  peril  is  may  be  measured  by 
the  Moral  Education  Congress  gathered  together  in 
London  last  year  to  try  to  find  a  moral  basis  that  should 
furnish  education  apart  from  all  the  sanctions  of  religion 
— a  hopeless  task,  but  none  the  less  a  sign  of  the  peril 
of  the  times.     Now,  we  have  had  secular  education  in 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  239 

India.  It  has  been  the  EngHsh  education  the  Govern- 
ment has  given  there.  It  could  not  give  any  other  be- 
cause of  the  different  reHgions  of  the  country,  and  it  was 
bound  not  to  help  any  one  of  these  to  the  detriment  of 
the  others.  The  moral  result  has  been  disastrous.  It 
has  fostered  selfishness,  indifference  to  the  country,  lack 
of  public  spirit.  It  has  given  us  a  race  of  men  who  have 
acquired  from  the  West  its  superficial  qualities,  but  not 
its  inner  strength,  not  its  inner  capacity.  And  the  troubles 
you  have  in  India  now  are  largely  the  result  of  this  anti- 
religious  education,  which  has  made  hundreds  of  the  best 
Indian  type  skeptics,  a  thing  which  has  only  been  checked 
with  the  growth  of  the  Theosophical  Society  throughout 
India.  We  have  turned  back  that  irreligious  wave,  with 
the  result  that  the  Indian  Government  to-day  regards  the 
Theosophical  Society  as  the  most  likely  agency  for  train- 
ing the  youth  of  India  along  lines  of  freedom  and  order 
at  the  same  time.  They  realise  that  we  have  put  our 
finger  on  the  weak  point  in  their  own  system,  and  that 
our  plan  of  giving  to  the  child  the  religion  of  his  parents 
is  really  the  way  to  solve  that  religious  problem  in  India. 
Now,  over  here  you  have  to  face  the  problem  how  to  pre- 
serve religion  while  letting  dogmatism  go ;  how  to  find  a 
common  ground,  a  few  common  principles,  which  all 
Christians  inculcate,  leaving  to  a  later  time  in  life  the 
special  sectarian  divisions  which  the  young  man  and  wo- 
man can  acquire  later  if  they  wish.  Now,  in  that  the 
Theosophical  Society  may  well  play  a  great  part  in  the 
immediate  future,  strengthening  all  the  influences  which 
make  for  the  keeping  of  religion  as  an  integral  part  of 
education,  helping  to  soften  the  bitter  sectarianism,  and 


240  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

persuade  the  different  denominations  to  remember  that 
they  are  Christians  more  than  that  they  belong  to  this, 
that,  or  the  other  denomination.  If  we  succeed  in  that, 
then  the  service  to  the  education  of  the  empire  will  be 
supreme. 

Along  other  lines  we  want,  if  we  can,  to  persuade  the 
public  mind  to  become  a  little  more  receptive  of  new 
ideas;  to  lose  a  little  of  its  pride,  and  learn  a  little 
humility.  Unless  we  are  quite  sure  that  we  are  at  the 
very  top  of  human  evolution,  and  that  nothing  greater 
than  ourselves  can  be  evolved,  then  it  would  be  the  part 
of  wisdom  to  recognise  that  the  next  type,  which  is  the 
type  of  the  future,  must  be  different  from  the  type  of  the 
present,  and,  in  the  beginning  of  its  evolution,  new  and 
strange.  You  may  remember  how  J.  S.  Mill,  in  speaking 
of  liberty,  laid  immense  stress  on  originality,  and  com- 
plained that  modem  methods  were  tending  to  make  all 
come  to  a  single  level;  to  do  away  with  the  eccentric, 
even  with  the  original.  Now,  for  growth,  variety  is 
wanted.  Where  there  is  no  spontaneous  variation  in 
types,  you  have  stagnation.  And  yet  every  one  of  us  is 
so  fond  of  our  own  particular  line  of  thought  that  we 
take  it  almost  as  an  offence  if  someone  starts  a  new 
thought  which  we  cannot  at  once  fit  into  our  own  mental 
grooves.  Now,  we  must  try  to  correct  that,  first  in  our- 
selves, and  then  in  the  public  at  large,  especially  in  view 
of  the  coming  of  that  mighty  Teacher  I  have  spoken  of. 
When  He  comes,  the  type  of  the  sixth  Root  Race,  He 
must  be  very  different  from  all  of  us,  otherwise  He 
would  not  be  the  type  of  the  new  departure.  How  can 
we  avoid  treating  Him  when  He  comes  exactly  as  our 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  24 1 

predecessors  of  the  fourth  sub-race  treated  Him  when 
He  came  last  to  start  the  fifth?  It  is  so  easy  for  all  of 
us,  looking  back  to  the  mighty  Figure  of  the  Christ,  to 
realize  something  of  its  splendour,  but  we  see  Him 
through  the  glamour  of  the  religion  which  has  made  His 
name  supreme  in  many  of  your  hearts.  Try  and  put 
yourselves  back  in  time,  and  see  how  strange  that  new 
type  would  have  then  seemed  to  you,  how  against  all 
your  prejudices.  So  different  was  He  that  He  raised  an 
antagonism  so  bitter  that  they  could  not  bear  Him 
amongst  them  for  more  than  three  years,  and  then  mur- 
dered Him.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  realise  that.  We  are 
apt  to  think,  "If  I  had  been  there,  I  would  have  stood 
beside  Him ;  I  would  not  have  been  amongst  those  who 
slew  Him."  And  yet  there  is  no  particular  reason  to 
think  we  should  not  have  done  the  same.  It  is  a  great 
lesson  for  the  immediate  future.  For  when  He  comes 
again  to  bless  this  beginning  of  a  sixth  sub-race,  the 
buddhic.  He  will  show  out  the  qualities  of  Buddhi  promi- 
nently, and  those  are  by  no  means  very  acceptable  to  the 
modern  world.  Look  fairly  at  your  own  minds  and  see 
how  you  stand  on  your  rights.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  time. 
If  you  have  not  what  you  think  your  rights,  you  make  a 
clamour  for  them.  For  the  manasic  civilisation  that  is 
the  proper  way,  but  those  who  want  to  go  on  in  the  new^ 
future  that  is  dawning  have  to  throw  all  that  aside.  You 
must  relinquish  your  "rights."  If  you  are  trampled  on, 
you  must  recognise  that  it  is  only  yourself  of  the  past 
trampling  on  yourself  of  the  present :  no  one  can  trample 
on  you  except  a  person  who  embodies  your  own  past 
injustice,  and  is  working  out  that  which  you  yourself 

16 


242  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

have  created.  That  is  a  very  unpopular  view,  as  unpop- 
ular as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  And  so  along  many 
other  lines  of  that  which  is  admirable  from  the  popular 
standpoint — ^power,  dominance,  the  spirit  which  tramples 
down  all  opposition.  How  different  from  that  of  the 
Wisdom  which  rules,  but  rules  from  within,  "mightily 
and  sweetly  ordering  all  things."  And  if  you  will  think 
over  this  is  detail  and  work  it  out,  you  will  find  you  will 
have  to  change  your  ideal  of  what  is  admirable,  and 
build  up  on  ideal  on  the  basis  of  Spirit  and  unity,  and  not 
on  rights  and  claims.  And  that  is  one  reason  why  the 
Theosophical  ideals  very  often  find  themselves  rejected 
in  the  outer  world.  Those  are  the  qualities  needed  for 
the  world  as  it  shall  be ;  and  if  we  are  to  be  builders  of 
that  immediate  future,  we  must  develop  them  in  our- 
selves. But  you  may  say :  "Is  it  not  rather  a  big  asser- 
tion to  make  that  this  Theosophical  Society  is  really  a 
nucleus  of  a  great  Root  Race ;  that  it  is  the  beginning  of 
a  sub-race  ?  What  right  have  you  to  make  such  a  claim  ?" 
The  answer  is,  that  looking  back  to  the  last  choice,  we 
should  expect  to  find  the  beginning  of  the  new  Race  and 
new  sub-race  among  those  who  were  not  the  leaders  of 
the  present,  but  had  in  them  the  germ  of  the  future. 
That  is  why  our  people  are  gathered  not  from  the  lead- 
ers and  the  thinkers,  but  from  the  loving,  the  compassion- 
ate, the  brotherly.  It  seems  a  feeble  thing,  this  power 
of  Brotherhood.  It.  is  the  mightiest  thing  in  all  the 
world.  And  although  it  is  true  that  we  cannot  expect 
to  find  amongst  us  men  and  women  of  magnificent  intel- 
lect and  overwhelming  power  of  thought,  we  may  expect 
to  find  amongst  us  the  compasisonate,  the  gentle,  and  the 


THE  IMMEDIATE  FUTURE  243 

loving,  and  those  give  the  plastic  material  which  will 
yield  itself  to  the  fingers  of  the  Manu  to  be  moulded  into 
a  new  type,  a  higher  evolution.  Hence,  from  time  to  time 
the  great  shakings  that  take  place  to  shake  out  those  who 
are  too  purely  intellectual,  and  who  do  not  think  the  word 
Brotherhood  is  a  word  that  ought  to  be  heard  so  much 
amongst  us.  The  Masters  have  chosen  Brotherhood  as 
our  mark,  and  we  cannot  march  in  Their  army  if  we  will 
not  bear  Their  sign.  And  so,  if  mind  makes  us  too  self- 
assertive,  too  sure  of  our  own  superiority,  then  we  must 
be  shaken  out  of  this  movement.  So  do  not  in  this  im- 
mediate future  be  troubled  if  we  still  continue  to  go  along 
our  own  quiet  road  of  attracting  the  loving  and  the  gen- 
tle rather  than  those  who  are  mighty  in  their  intellectual 
power.  The  thing  of  vital  importance  is  the  Spirit  of 
Brotherhood,  and  that  we  must  never  let  go.  And  re- 
member, in  the  whole  of  the  struggles  of  the  future,  as 
in  those  of  the  past,  that  they  must  always  rage  round 
persons,  and  those  who  think  more  of  personalities  than 
of  principles  are  inevitably  shaken  out.  If  you  make  a 
person's  presence  or  absence  a  reason  for  being  in  or  out 
of  the  Society,  you  are  showing  the  spirit  of  separation, 
which  cannot  realise  a  principle,  but  thinks  only  of  the 
passing  and  transient  personality.  What  can  it  matter 
whether  any  one  of  you  agrees  or  disagrees  with  Mr. 
Leadbeater,  or  with  Mr.  Mead,  or  with  anyone  else? 
These  are  all  persons.  The  principle  of  the  Society  re- 
main unshaken.  Presidents  are  elected  and  Presidents 
die,  but  the  Society  goes  on.  What  folly,  then,  to  give  up 
a  place  in  a  mighty  movement  because  the  person  tempo- 
rarily at  the  head  of  it  is  a  person  who  does  not  exactly 


244  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

fit  into  the  shape  yon  have  made  as  your  own  particular 
ideal.  It  does  not  matter.  The  Society  is  not  bound  by 
its  President  any  more  than  by  anyone  else.  It  is  bound 
only  by  its  great  central  principle  of  Brotherhood.  And 
so  all  of  you  who  have  stood  through  the  past  shaking 
have  shown  that  you  care  more  for  principles  than  for 
persons,  and  it  does  not  matter  whether,  so  to  speak, 
you  have  agreed  or  disagreed  with  the  President  so  long 
as  you  have  stood  firm  within  the  Society ;  for  there 
lies  the  principle,  whilst  the  other  is  only  personality. 
Cling,  then,  to  that  principle  to  which  you  have  clung 
through  the  past  storm ;  recognise  that  whether  a  person 
be  right  or  wrong,  noble  or  ignoble,  great  or  small,  that 
is  a  matter  of  secondary  importance.  The  work  of  the 
future  lies  in  the  movement,  and  not  in  the  hands  of  any 
particular  individual  who  may  happen  to  be  here. 
Whether  you  or  I  come  back  to  this  great  movement 
in  other  lives  depends  on  ourselves,  and  not  on  the 
opinion  that  anyone,  else  may  happen  to  have  about  us. 
None  can  throw  us  out  of  it  if  we  are  worthy  to  remain 
in  it;  none  can  keep  us  in  it  if  we  are  unworthy  to  be 
part  of  it.  And  realising  karmic  law,  realising  the 
greatness  of  the  movement  and  its  work  in  the  future, 
let  us  join  hands,  whether  we  agree  or  disagree  with  each 
other  on  any  other  matter  save  that  of  Brotherhood,  and 
go  forward  into  the  future  that  is  unfolding  before  us, 
brighter  than  ever  the  past  has  shone ;  go  forward  to  the 
making  of  the  sub-race  out  of  which  the  Root  Race  shall 
spring,  under  the  banner  of  our  Manu  and  our  Bod- 
hisattva,  the  mighty  Ones  of  years  and  millennia  to  come. 


Lecture  III 

The  Catholic  and  Puritan  Spirit  in  the 

Theosophical  Society 

The  Value  and  Danger  of  Each 

I  WANT  to  try  to  trace  out  the  somewhat  difficult  subject 
of  the  place  of  the  Puritan  and  the  Catholic  Spirit  in  our 
Society.  I  want  to  show  that  both  types  are  necessary 
in  every  great  movement ;  that  both  have  their  value  and 
place,  yet  also  their  dangers.  And  if  we  realise  that 
both  are  necessary,  it  may  help  each  type  to  be  tolerant 
as  regards  the  other,  and  to  see  that  each  has  its  dangers. 
Now,  all  the  world  over  these  two  types  are  found; 
they  are,  in  fact,  two  marked  temperaments,  intellectual 
and  emotional,  into  which,  roughly,  you  might  throw 
almost  all  thoughtful  and  educated  people,  and  even  the 
thoughtless  and  ignorant,  for  those  also  will  show  similar 
types,  although  naturally  less  attractively,  because  more 
extreme,  than  they  may  be  among  the  class  of  people  who 
at  least  are  seeking  to  understand  themselves,  and  to  gain 
some  measure  of  equilibrium.  Looked  at  from  the  out- 
side, the  Catholic  type  is  certainly  the  more  attractive, 
and  therefore  I  want  to  impress  upon  you  the  value  of 
the  Puritan  type ;  because,  being  less  attractive,  its  value 

245 


246  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

is  more  likely  to  be  overlooked.  If  the  Puritan  spirit 
were  completely  lost,  mankind  would  lack  that  vigour  and 
strength  and  tendency  to  free  thought  and  free  judgment 
which  are  so  essential  to  human  evolution.  Unfortu- 
nately, it  has  often  been  united  with  a  very  cold  and  for- 
bidding exterior ;  and  if  we  take  the  two  types  as  we  find 
them  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  certainly  the  Puritan  is 
not  very  attractive  from  outside — hard,  rather  sour,  for- 
bidding, and  austere.  But  it  is  not  quite  fair  to  judge  the 
Puritan  by  that  type  in  the  reign  of  the  Stuarts.  It  is 
not  fair  to  pick  out  a  type  at  the  moment  where  these  two 
difficulties  face  it — danger  to  itself,  and  the  extreme  evil 
of  the  type  it  is  opposing.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  take  that 
moment  for  a  judgment  of  the  value  of  the  temperament 
in  itself.  But  even  if  you  take  the  Puritan  of  the  time 
of  Charles  I.  and  Cromwell,  you  can  hardly  help  noticing, 
if  you  go  beyond  externals,  the  extreme  moral  value  of 
that  type  amid  those  difficult  and  dangerous  surround- 
ings. Austere  as  it  was,  it  was  the  austerity  that  was 
trying  to  guard  itself  against  continual  danger  of  pollu- 
tion, and  naturally  it  ran  into  extremes,  as  all  reactions 
run,  with  the  inevitable  result  that  another  reaction  fol- 
lowed on  the  first,  and  you  had  the  loose  and  profligate 
type  of  the  Court  of  Charles  II.  It  is  the  types  I  want 
to  disentangle  from  these  special  manifestations,  and, 
looking  at  them  apart,  from  all  conditions  that  may 
emphasise  one  characteristic  or  another. 

Now,  in  what  does  the  Puritan  type  exactly  consist? 
It  seems  to  consist  in  an  attitude  of  protest  and  criticism 
rather  than  of  ready  acceptance  of  the  prevailing  thought 
of  the  time.     The  Puritan  mind  is  essentially  critical,  and 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  247 

critical  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term,  which,  instead 
of  making  the  critic  a  judge,  makes  him  an  opponent 
and  condemner.  We  must  remember,  however,  that  the 
true  critical  spirit  is  absolutely  necessary  for  human 
progress,  even  though  it  often  slips  into  condemnation 
and  cynicism.  The  Puritan  is  always  intellectual  (I  am 
speaking  of  the  purer  type),  a  man  in  whom  mind  is  pre- 
dominant. He  is  of  the  type  that  tends  to  separation 
rather  than  unity;  he  stands  alone,  sufficient  for  himself 
(I  say  that  rather  than  "self-sufficient,"  the  second  form 
connoting  a  rather  unpleasant  quality) .  We  must  realise 
the  strength  of  this  type.  The  strength  may  slip  into 
austerity,  but  that  very  largely  grows  out  of  the  religion 
to  which  the  Puritan  may  happen  to  be  attached.  You 
do  not  find  him  in  his  more  aggressive  form  unless  he  is 
protesting  against  something  he  regards  as  dangerous 
and  mischievous.  Naturally,  under  these  considerations 
he  is  thrown  into  the  attitude  of  combat,  and  hence  all 
that  is  harshest  and  most  hostile  inevitably  comes  to  the 
surface.  But  that  is  not  a  necessary  part  of  the  Puritan 
spirit.  Looking  at  him  as  the  intellectual  man  in  whom 
emotion  in  this  particular  life  is  comparatively  weak,  or 
if  not  weak,  repressed;  seeing  that  in  him  the  mental 
qualities  are  those  which  in  this  incarnation  he  specially 
endeavours  to  develop ;  understanding  that  the  mind  can 
only  be  developed  where  the  qualities  of  analysing,  com- 
paring, and  judging  are  active,  you  can  readily  see  how, 
in  the  face  of  opposition,  these  qualities  would  turn  into 
antagonism  and  protest.  But  I  do  not  think  antagonism 
and  protest  are  a  necessary  part  of  the  Puritan  spirit.  In 
peaceful  times  your  Puritan  would  be  distinguished 


248  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

rather  as  the  analytical  or  intellectual  man,  most  valuable 
to  any  community  into  which  he  may  be  thrown  at  the 
time.  For  you  cannot  develop  the  mind  without  develop- 
ing these  analysing  qualities :  synthesis  comes  later,  the 
one  belonging  to  the  lower,  the  other  to  the  higher 
Manas.  Both  need  to  be  developed.  While  the  lower 
Manas  is  developing,  you  must  have  these  qualities  of 
analysis,  comparison,  and  judgment  without  which  it  is 
not  possible  to  lay  a  strong  foundation  for  any  belief. 
You  must  recognise  the  utter  necessity  for  the  challeng- 
ing, questioning,  even  doubting  and  sceptical  spirit. 
Only  by  means  of  this  can  error  be  detected,  and  the  tra- 
ditions that  come  down  from  the  past  be  gradually  puri- 
fied of  the  accretions  that  have  come  to  them  during 
the  ignorant  periods  through  which  they  may  have 
passed.  To  be  sceptical  is  no  fault,  but  rather  a  virtue. 
If  there  is  to  be  progress  at  all,  there  must  be  challenging 
of  that  which  has  come  down  from  the  past,  so  that, 
testing,  analysing,  criticising,  you  may  be  able  to  separate 
the  truth  from  the  error.  How  would  religion  become 
ever  more  and  more  spiritual  if  men  are  only  to  inherit, 
and  never  to  examine  and  understand?  'Knd  since  no 
religion  or  other  form  of  thought  can  ever  come  down 
through  centuries  without  picking  up  a  large  amount  of 
error,  if  we  had  not  this  critical  and  challenging  spirit  all 
religions  would  grow  into  superstitions,  and  that  which  is 
most  valuable  for  the  race  would  gradually  be  covered 
under  a  mass  of  ignorant  error.  Hence  at  certain  times 
in  the  history  of  the  race  a  great  outburst  of  the  Puritan 
spirit  is  necessary.  That  alone  will  bring  about  funda- 
mental changes,  religious,  moral,  and  social ;  that  alone 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  249 

has  the  courage  to  go  forward  whilst  in  a  minority,  and 
test  with  the  test  of  reason  every  beHef  and  every  tradi- 
tion. We  must  not,  then,  blind  ourselves  to  the  immense 
value  of  this  spirit  in  the  intellectual  development  of  man. 
For  always,  inasmuch  as  religious  and  social  order  has 
come  by  some  great  Teacher  enormously  beyond  his 
own  generation  in  religious,  moral,  and  social  develop- 
ment, inevitably  his  teachings,  handed  down  generation 
after  generation,  will  in  many  respects  tend  to  be  cov- 
ered with  superstition. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  and  see  what  the  word 
"superstition**  means.  I  do  not  think  I  can  give  a  better 
definition  than  my  old  one :  "superstition  is  the  taking  of 
the  non-essential  as  the  essential."  I  think  that  you  will 
find  that  that  covers  all  the  cases  which  you  would  call 
supestitions — a  truth  originally ;  but  in  every  truth  there 
are  necessary  and  accessory  parts.  As  the  understand- 
ing of  the  truth  is  clouded,  the  accessories  take  on  too 
large  a  value  in  the  minds  of  people,  until  at  last  the 
accessory  is  everything  and  the  essential  nothing. 

I  told  once  an  Indian  story  which  marks  out  clearly 
what  is  superstition.  There  was  once  a  very  holy  man 
in  the  habit  of  offering  a  sacrifice  by  pouring  butter  into 
the  fire — one  of  the  ordinary  Hindu  ceremonies. 
Morning  after  morning  he  duly  performed  this  rite.  He 
was  much  admired  by  his  neighbours,  and  the  regularity 
of  the  discharge  of  his  religious  duties  led  them  to  con- 
sider him  a  model  worthy  of  imitation.  This  good  man 
happened  to  have  a  cat.  As  he  was  kindly-hearted  and 
affectionate,  the  cat  loved  him,  and  used  to  come  up  and 
interrupt  his  religious  service;  so  he  put  a  collar  round 


250  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

the  cat  and  tied  it  to  the  bedpost  to  prevent  interrup- 
tions. Time  went  on,  a  few  generations  passed,  and 
then  all  of  the  people  who  copied  this  admirable  saint 
not  only  offered  the  sacrifice,  but  also  considered  it  a 
part  of  the  rite  to  have  a  cat  tied  to  the  bedpost.  Still 
more  time  went  on,  until  at  last  all  that  remained  of  the 
original  ceremony  was  the  cat  tied  to  the  bedpost  and 
nothing  else.  Now  there  is  superstition:  the  harmless 
accessory  had  become  necessary,  until  it  occupied  the 
whole  of  the  worshippers'  minds.  This  is  often  the  case 
in  religions  which  have  lasted  long,  and  have  had  many 
ignorant  adherents.  They  cannot  distinguish  between 
the  inner  meaning  and  the  outer  form ;  and  gradually  the 
outer  form  becomes  everything,  and  the  inner  meaning 
disappears.  Then  comes  the  time  when,  superstition 
having  taken  the  place  of  truth,  there  rises  up  the  critical 
intellect  of  man,  attacks  the  whole,  and  challenges  the 
authority.  Only  sometimes  the  critic  is  not  evolved 
enough  to  recognise  the  truth  at  the  same  time  that  he 
wars  against  the  error.  More  often  he  takes  the  whole 
as  superstition  and  tries  to  destroy  it  completely.  There 
you  have  the  history  of  many  reformations.  Take  the 
great  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century.  If  you  look 
back  to  that  you  will  see  that  an  enormous  amount  of 
valuable  truth  was  thrown  aside  in  trying  to  get  rid  of 
the  surface  error  with  which  the  truth  had  been  covered. 
And  so  in  tracing  down  the  growth  of  the  Puritan  spirit 
from  the  time  of  Luther,  through  Calvinistic  Switzer- 
land, up  to  Scotland  with  John  Knox,  and  then  looking 
at  it  as  it  spread  over  England,  and  became  so  powerful 
under  James  I.  and  Charles  I.,  you  will  recognise  that  in 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  2$ I 

the  whole  of  that  there  is  a  gradual  throwing  away  of 
everything  that  the  mind  could  not  grasp  and  understand, 
and  consequently  a  great  loss  of  the  spiritual  side  of 
things.  The  result  of  that  historically  has  been  that  the 
truth  that  was  thrown  away  in  the  getting  rid  of  the 
error  came  back  again  a  little  later.  And  so  with  certain 
fundamental  tendencies  in  man,  against  which  the  Puri- 
tan of  that  time  set  himself  utterly — the  use  of  images 
in  public  worship,  the  use  of  music,  the  use  of  garments 
different  from  the  everyday  garments,  and  so  on — all 
these  points  that  he  threw  aside  as  part  of  the  Papal 
abomination  came  back  again,  slowly,  steadily,  gradually 
spreading  through  the  whole  of  the  Anglican  Church. 
So  that  you  have  this  remarkable  object-lesson,  which 
it  would  be  well  for  all  Puritan-spirited  people  to 
remember.  You  may  visit  a  cathedral;t^-day.  Outside 
the  cathedral  you  will  see  the  statues  wtfeiga^ere  broken 
by  Cromwell's  soldiery ;  and  inside  the*  cathedral,  on  or 
round  the  high  altar  and  chancel,  you  will  see  the 
modern  statues  placed  there  in  order  to  help  the  devo- 
tional spirit  in  the  congregation. 

I  have  purposely  taken  the  Puritan  spirit  outside  the 
Theosophical  Society  so  that  you  may  look  at  it  apart 
from  any  special  question  of  interest  to  our  own  Society. 
If  you  see  the  value  of  that  in  religion,  you  will  welcome 
its  presence  in  the  Theosophical  Society.  You  will 
realise  that  that  spirit  is  wanted  in  order  to  balance 
and  keep  in  check  what  might  otherwise  be  the  excess 
of  the  Catholic  spirit.  You  will  realise  that  our  critical 
friends  are  doing  us  an  immense  service  in  their  criticism, 
and  that  it  only  becomes  mischievous  when  the  critical 


252  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Spirit  grows  into  antagonism  and  dislike,  which  need  not 
at  all  accompany  it,  and  should  not  accompany  it  in  a 
well-balanced  and  thoughtful  mind.  We  must  have  that 
spirit  amongst  us,  otherwise  the  enthusiastic  will  run 
away  too  rapidly  and  fall  into  error.  The  chill  that 
sometimes  it  causes  is  a  very  valuable  element  for  mental 
growth.  We  do  not  want  to  have  nothing  but  chill — 
that  will  prevent  growth  altogether;  but  if  we  were 
more  tolerant  with  each  other,  then  we  might  have  the 
advantage  of  the  chill,  which  would  keep  the  intellectual 
atmosphere  clear  and  sharp,  without  having  the  very 
life  chilled  out  of  us  by  criticism. 

Let  us  now  pause  on  what  we  mean  by  the  Catholic 
spirit.  By  that  I  mean  the  spirit  which  is  reverent  of 
tradition,  which  is  willing  to  submit  to  reasonable  and 
recognised  authority,  which  is  willing  to  take  a  great 
plan  and  co-operate  in  it,  and  realise  that  the  presence 
of  the  architect  of  the  plan,  if  He  be  a  person  highly 
developed,  say  a  Master,  is  enough  to  give  it  authority, 
and  that  there  is  no  lack  of  freedom  or  dignity  in 
accepting  the  plan  of  a  greater,  and  working  it  out  to 
the  utmost  of  one's  ability.  It  is  the  spirit  which,  largely 
emotional,  when  it  rises  into  love  of  the  higher  and 
becomes  devotion,  causes  sympathetic  vibrations  on  the 
buddhic  plane,  and  so  begins  the  awakening  of  the  Spirit 
above  the  intellect.  Again,  with  this  Catholic  spirit 
you  always  find  the  \o\d  of  beauty.  It  is  artistic.  It 
seeks  to  clothe  thought  in  forms  of  beauty.  It  loves 
ceremonial,  takes  a  pleasure  in  harmonised  expression 
of  thought,  and  desires  that  everything  round  it  should 
be  emotionally  satisfactory  as  well  as  intellectually  sound. 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  253 

Moreover,  its  mind  is  eminently  teachable,  where  the 
Puritan  is  not.  Hence  it  is  far  easier  to  lead  it  along 
the  path  of  what  is  called  Occultism.  The  Catholic 
mind  very  readily  recognises  that  those  above  itself  in 
development  may  be  able  by  guidance  and  teaching  to 
help  it  to  reach  knowledge  which,  unaided,  it  would  be 
unable  to  achieve.  The  Puritan  would  walk  alone ;  the 
Catholic  would  utilise  every  assistance  that  can  be  given 
in  evolution,  including  the  assistance  of  human  beings 
more  highly  developed,  as  well  as  of  spiritual  intelli- 
gences. And  so  you  have  round  it  an  atmosphere  which 
readily  responds  to  impulses  from  the  spiritual  worlds, 
and  always  with  this  spirit  you  find  the  tendency  toward 
Occultism  of  various  kinds.  I  do  not  think  you  ever 
find  that  tendency  in  connexion  with  the  Puritan  spirit. 
You  may  find  with  the  Puritan  spirit  sometimes  a  lofty 
form  of  mysticism,  a  recognition  of  a  Spirit  as  the  Life 
of  the  universe,  and  an  attempt  to  realise  that  Spirit 
within  oneself.  That  you  may  reach  largely  by  way  of 
the  intellect,  and  emotion  is  not  necessarily  concerned 
in  it.  Intellectually  you  may  realise  unity,  and  then 
pass  into  the  mystical  ideal  of  the  One  in  the  Many,  to 
be  recognised  in  each.  And  you  do  find  occasionally  in 
the  great  Puritans  of  the  past  a  very  noble,  though 
somewhat  stern  and  cold,  form  of  mystical  belief; 
whereas  the  moment  you  come  to  Catholic  mysticism,  you 
find  yourself  in  an  atmosphere  charged  with  emotion. 
The  Catholic  Mystic  is  swept  up  in  a  great  surge  of 
emotion  to  the  Object  of  his  love;  the  Puritan  Mystic 
calmly,  almost  coldly,  recognises  the  greatness  of  the 
Object  of  his  worship,  intellectually  tries  to  realise,  and 


254  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

by  that  to  some  extent  unifies  himself  with  It.  You 
have  an  example  of  the  Puritan  Mystic  in  Cromwell. 
Read  his  letters,  read  the  letters  of  the  man,  wrung  out 
of  his  heart  by  the  strain  of  doubt  and  despair,  and  cling- 
ing, in  spite  of  all  temptation,  to  his  belief  in  the  reality 
of  a  Divine  Power  whose  instrument  he  was.  You  will 
rise  from  that  reading  with  a  new  idea  of  the  strength  of- 
the  man,  and  realise  that  with  all  that  strength  there 
was  the  recognition  of  the  strength  of  God  and  of  his 
own  strength  as  being  only  an  instrument  in  the  divine 
hands.  But  you  never  find  the  Puritan  Mystic  the  ex- 
pression of  love,  of  passionate  affection,  that  are  so 
common  among  the  Catholic  Mystics;  and  more  than 
anything  else  is  the  difference  marked  when  you  come  to 
deal  with  Occultism. 

And  there,  in  our  own  Society,  is  a  point  we  ought  to 
pause  upon.  The  Catholic  type  amongst  us  will  be  one 
that  will  readily  respond  to  the  idea  of  the  Masters,  the 
Puritan  less  quickly.  The  Catholic  mind  in  the  Theoso- 
phist  will  not  only  recognise  the  ideal  of  the  Masters, 
but  will  be  fired  with  a  desire  to  tread  the  path  that 
They  have  trodden.  There  will  be  a  looking  up  of  rev- 
erence, an  outstretching  of  the  hand  for  guidance;  a 
realisation  that  by  that  dependence  more  rapid  progress 
may  be  made  than  along  any  other  line.  That  which  is 
invisible  will  exercise  a  potent  attraction ;  he  will  always 
be  trying  to  know  something  of  the  invisible  worlds  and 
their  inhabitants,  he  will  always  be  reaching  out  toward 
these  worlds  and  trying  to  expand  his  consciousness  into 
communication  with  them.   He  will  be  willing  to  train 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  255 

himself  with  that  in  view,  and  you  will  have  in  him  the 
possibility  of  the  Occultist  which  you  will  not  find  in  the 
Puritan  type.  For  you  cannot  begin  this  part  of  occult 
knowledge  along  the  purely  intellectual  lines.  The  intel- 
lectual exertion  will  check  at  once  the  evolution  of  the 
other  vehicles.  The  moment  you  begin  to  think :  "What 
am  I  doing?  Is  it  imagination?  Is  it  hallucination?" 
you  check  the  growth  of  the  subtler  faculties  of  the  man. 
You  are  obliged  for  a  time  to  go  on  without  questions, 
feeling,  sensing,  groping,  and  refusing  to  allow  the  mind 
to  come  in  with  its  analysing  spirit,  that  chills  everything 
down  so  much  that  these  budding  faculties,  as  it  were, 
shrink  back  from  the  touch  of  the  frost,  refusing  to 
unfold.  "Well,"  you  say,  "there  is  a  danger.  The  per- 
son may  become  overcredulous,  may  be  utterly  led 
astray."  True.  It  is  the  necessary  danger  of  all  such 
research.  Only  step  by  step  do  you  learn  by  experience 
to  distinguish  between  the  true  and  false,  between  the 
thought-forms  created  by  yourself  and  the  inhabitants 
of  other  worlds  into  which  you  are  penetrating  with 
half-opened  eyes.  But  remember  that  distinguishing 
does  not  do  away  with  the  reality  of  the  thought-form. 
Your  own  thought-forms  which  surround  you  when 
you  first  pass  on  to  the  astral  plane  are  real  forms  in 
astral  matter.  They  deceive  you,  yes,  because  they  are 
your  own  creations,  and  only  give  you  back  the  things 
you  are  thinking  about.  They  repeat  to  you  your  own 
thoughts,  and  there  lies  the  element  of  danger.  But  you 
can  only  outgrow  that  by  experience,  exactly  in  the  same 
way  that  the  baby  learns  that  it  cannot  catch  hold  of  the 
glittering  thing  at  the  end  of  the  room,  but,  to  reach  it, 


256  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

must  cover  a  great  deal  of  space.  You  do  not  think  it 
heartbreaking  because  the  baby  makes  mistakes.  You 
are  content  that  he  shall  learn.  Why  not  be  as  philosoph- 
ical about  yourselves?  You  know  that  they  will  grow 
out  of  their  ignorance  by  experience.  So  will  you.  Those 
who  always  want  to  be  right  are  people  who  will  never 
make  Occultists.  The  Occultist  must  be  ready  to  plunge 
forward,  and  possibly  tumble  into  a  bog,  but  be  ready  to 
go  on  again  afterwards,  learning  by  experience  to  under- 
stand. Those  who  will  not  face  this  have  not  enough  of 
the  Catholic  spirit  to  make  Occultists,  and  had  better 
leave  it  for  another  incarnation. 

There  is  another  danger,  one  especially  seen  here — 
the  dependence  upon  another.  I  have  often  been  asked : 
"How  can  you  develop  independence  and  judgment  if 
you  are  always  trying  to  do  the  will  of  another,  whom 
you  call  your  Master?"  The  answer  is  simple.  You 
look  to  your  Master  for  direction,  and  He  may  point  you 
to  some  work  to  be  done.  You  take  the  work  because 
He  told  you  to  do  it.  So  far  you  are  the  obedient  serv- 
ant; but  your  judgment,  your  reason,  all  your  thought- 
power,  all  your  initiative,  are  taxed  to  the  utmost  in  the 
achievement  of  the  task.  A  sensible  Occultist  never  goes 
running  to  his  Master  and  asking,  "How  shall  I  do 
this?"  He  knows  that  is  not  the  Master's  work.  The 
Master  has  done  His  part  in  saying  "Do  that."  How 
you  do  it  tests  you,  and  brings  out  your  strength  and 
weakness.  And  the  Master  is  far  too  wise  to  prevent 
your  bringing  out  your  strength  and  discovering  your 
weakness  by  doing  for  you  what  He  has  told  you  to  do. 
Hence  the  Occultist  develops  all  his  faculties  in  the 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  257 

attempt  to  do  his  Master*s  will.  The  two  things  work 
well  togetlier,  and  he  does  not  become  weak  but  strong 
in  realising  that  the  Master  is  greater  than  he,  and 
knows  far  better  the  plan  of  the  work,  while  he  himself, 
in  carrying  out  his  own  portion  of  it,  finds  full  employ- 
ment for  every  faculty  of  brain  and  heart. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  for  the  typical  Puritan  to  be- 
come an  Occultist  in  the  life  in  which  this  side  is  being 
so  strongly  developed.  You  cannot  understand  every- 
thing when  you  go  into  unknown  worlds ;  and  unless  you 
are  willing  to  be  ignorant,  there  is  no  possibility  of  dis- 
covering new  knowledge.  Every  pioneer  of  science — ^to 
quote,  I  think,  Faraday — "runs  about  like  a  dog  with 
his  nose  to  the  ground,  trying  to  find  out  a  trail."  That 
is  exactly  the  way  of  the  experimenter.  You  must  search 
for  yourself  for  the  trace  which  will  guide  you  to  the 
desired  knowledge ;  and  if  you  will  not  do  that,  you  must 
take  the  results  of  others,  and  be  content  with  these 
results  for  this  life. 

But,  now,  how  will  these  two  types  of  spirit  work 
when  they  come  to,  say,  such  a  question  as  that  of  Mr. 
Leadbeater?  You  will  have  at  once  the  working  of 
the  critical  intelligence  which  sees  faults  more  readily 
than  virtues,  and  bad  motives  more  readily  than  good. 
That  is  its  weakness.  But  it  also  has  its  value  in  pointing 
out  certain  dangers  into  which  the  Society  might  other- 
wise slip.  The  Catholic  spirit  will  be  far  more  ready  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  one  from  whom  they  have 
learned  much,  whom  they  know  to  have  far  vaster  knowl- 
edge than  their  own,  may  have  some  other  reason  which 
they  do  not  see,  which  would  justify  to  the  doer  what 

17 


258  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

he  has  done,  and  they  do  not  feel  that  curious  sense 
that  they  must  save  their  neighbours'  souls,  whether 
their  neighbours  desire  it  or  not.  They  are  content  to 
say,  "This  is  my  road,  that  is  his" — a  wider  and  more 
generous  spirit.  Nevertheless,  I  think  we  should  do  well 
also  to  recognise  that  the  presence  in  the  Society  of 
the  critical  and  even  judging  spirit  has  at  some  times  its 
value.  But  it  is  not  a  foundation  on  which  anything  can 
be  built,  and  that  is  sometimes  forgotten.  You  cannot 
build  an  enduring  edifice  on  the  grounds  of  protest 
against  someone  else.  It  cannot  endure.  It  is  curious  to 
notice  that  the  same  people  who  condemn  personality 
when  the  tendency  of  the  personality  is  love  and  devo- 
tion, are  the  people  who  show  personality  most  strongly 
when  they  antagonise  and  dislike.  I  admit  to  the  full 
that  principle  should  guide,  not  personality;  but  I  can- 
not admit  that  a  love  for  a  personality  is  wrong,  whilst 
a  hatred  of  a  personality  is  right  and  admirable.  Both 
may  put  persons  above  principles  if  the  two  come  into 
clash.  And  it  is  putting  a  personality  above  a  prin- 
ciple when  you  desert  the  Theosophical  Society,  forget- 
ting the  great  principles  which  make  it  immortal,  and 
leave  it,  protesting  against  it,  because  one  or  two  peo- 
ple hold  views  with  which  you  do  not  agree.  It  is  the 
ne  plus  ultra  of  personality.  Mr.  Leadbeater  and  Mrs. 
Besant  are  both  comparatively  old,  and  cannot  at  the 
most  live  very  long.  What  utter  folly,  then,  to  desert 
the  great  principles  incarnated  in  the  Society  because  of 
the  antagonism  of  two  transitory  personalities !  If 
Theosophy  be  anything  at  all,  then  it  is  everything  in 
life,  and  is  not  to  be  given  up  for  anyone,  whether  saint 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  259 

or  criminal.  Suppose  a  hundred  murderers  were  mem- 
bers of  the  Society,  is  that  any  reason  why  you  or  I 
should  go  out  of  it?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  fact  that 
we  disapprove  of  that  so  much  is  a  reason  for  staying  in 
the  Society,  in  order  to  strengthen  it  in  the  hour  of  its 
peril  and  to  carry  it  through. 

We  need  in  the  whole  of  this  to  study  our  own  nature 
first,  and  find  out  our  weak  points,  and  then  to  guard 
against  that  weakness  in  the  time  of  storm  and  stress. 
And  we  need,  more  than  that,  to  realise  that  very  often 
when  people  oppose  us,  they  oppose  us  because  of  their 
virtues,  and  not  because  of  their  vices.  That  is,  that 
the  people  who  are  utterly  against  me  now  are  against 
me  because  of  their  virtues.  They  are  wrong  in  the  view 
they  take — they  misconstrue ;  that  does  not  matter.  But 
the  fundamental  reason  why  they  oppose  is  because  they 
believe  that  I  am  condoning  what  is  wrong.  That  is  a 
good  feeling  and  right.  But  it  is  not  right  when  it  goes 
into  hatred  and  calumny,  when  people  go  about  telling 
abominable  stories  of  all  kinds  which  are  utterly  false, 
using  them  as  weapons  to  injure.  But,  none  the  less,  the 
beginning  lay  in  a  virtue — the  desire  to  guard  the  Society 
from  harm ;  and  that  ought  to  be  recognised  even  when 
it  has  run  into  excess.  If  we  can  do  that,  then,  in  the 
midst  of  struggle,  we  shall  be  learning  the  true  The- 
osophical  spirit,  which  sees  the  good  first,  and  only 
recognises  the  excess  afterwards.  And  my  suggestion  is : 
"Train  yourself,  in  your  ordinary  thinking,  to  see  first 
the  good  of  a  person  or  thing,  and  only  afterwards  allow 
yourself  to  see  the  weakness  or  evil."  Then  you  will  get 
all  the  good  of  your  critical  spirit,  and  be  guarded  against 


26o  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

much  harm.  But  if  you  see  the  bad  side  first,  you  are 
likely  not  to  see  the  good  side  at  all.  These  things  test 
our  members,  and  show  whether  we  are  fit  to  go  along 
this  great  path  or  not — show  whether  we  are  ready  to  be 
part  of  that  great  Sixth  Race  which  is  coming,  or 
whether  we  are  so  wedded  to  our  own  opinions  that  out- 
side those  we  can  see  nothing  good. 

The  trouble  is  practically  over,  but  we  should  remem- 
ber its  lessons — a  wider  tolerance,  a  sterner  self-criti- 
cism, and  a  more  charitable  attitude  towards  our  fellows. 
You  cannot  be  too  hard  in  criticising  yourself,  nor  too 
tolerant  and  charitable  towards  your  neighbour.  Re- 
member that  in  every  one  of  us  the  Self  is  endeavouring 
to  express  something  of  himself.  In  our  own  case  we 
have  the  right  to  criticise  every  obstacle  put  in  the  way 
of  His  manifestation,  to  be  hard  in  our  judgment  of  our- 
selves, pitiless  in  our  condemnation  of  our  every  fault 
and  weakness.  But  we  cannot  govern  the  manifestation 
of  the  Self  in  another ;  hence  our  criticism  is  useless  and 
impertinent — does  not  help,  but  hinders  ;  for  if  the  other 
person  is  wrong,  as  you  think  he  is,  then  your  harsh 
judgment  makes  an  added  barrier  in  his  way  when  the 
Self  in  him  is  trying  to  guide  him  back  to  the  right, 
whereas  your  charity,  your  tolerant  respect,  will  help 
him  to  realise  the  noblest  in  him.  Hence  the  lesson  of 
this  great  shaking  should  be  criticism  of  ourselves  and 
charity  to  all  around  us.  Recognition  of  our  own  type, 
clear  self -judgment,  so  that  we  may  walk  aright  and 
help  others  as  much  as  may  be;  and,  above  all,  so  to 
purify  our  own  characters  that  we  may  be  channels  for 
the  life  that  flows  in  the  Society,  and  may  not  soil  it  as 


THE  CATHOLIC  AND  PURITAN  SPIRIT  261 

it  passes  through  ourselves.  The  Society  can  never  die 
by  attacks  from  without,  nor  by  desertions  from  within ; 
it  can  only  die  when  its  members  are  careless  of  their 
own  thought,  their  own  character,  their  own  ideas ;  that, 
and  that  alone,  can  make  the  Society  unworthy  of  the 
guidance  of  its  Teachers.  It  was  once  said :  "So  long  as 
three  men  remain  in  the  Society  worthy  of  our  Lord's 
blessing  it  cannot  perish."  That  was  a  word  spoken  by 
a  Master  in  the  days  when  the  Society  was  weak  and 
struggling,  and  when  the  few  people  that  belonged  to  it 
feared  it  would  never  survive  the  storm  that  shook  it  in 
the  time  of  the  Coulomb  attack.  Think  of  that  if  any 
other  storm  should  approach  us — although  we  are  not 
likely  now  to  have  another  for  the  next  twelve  years; 
but  when  a  storm  comes,  remember  that  inspiring  idea, 
that  as  long  as  three  remain  in  the  Society  it  cannot 
perish ;  and  add  to  that  the  vow  registered  by  the  Higher 
Self :  "If  others  depart,  I  will  be  one  of  the  three." 


Lecture  IV 
The   Sacramental   Life 

I  AM  to  Speak  to  you  to-night  on  a  subject  of  deep  in- 
terest to  those  who  regard  the  religions  of  the  world 
from  the  standpoint  of  Occultism.  In  all  the  great  re- 
ligions we  find  what  are  called  "sacraments,"  to  take  the 
Western  name;  and  in  all  religions  the  object  is  the 
same — the  endeavour  to  spiritualise  the  ordinary  life  of 
man ;  to  make  it  possible  for  men  and  women  living  in 
the  world,  blinded  by  their  bodies,  unable  to  rise  above 
the  material  limitations — to  enable  those  men  and  women 
to  come  into  direct  touch  with  higher  worlds  and  higlier 
beings,  and  so,  from  the  definite  sacramental  act,  to  pass 
on  until  the  whole  life  may  become  a  sacrament  by  the 
radiation  of  spiritual  life  through  the  material  coating. 

Now  different  religions  have  different  numbers  of 
sacraments,  although  the  essence  remains  the  same.  In 
Hinduism  the  sacraments  are  very  numerous.  Ten  are 
recognised  as  of  universal  application,  but  the  number 
will  run  up  to  thirty  or  forty  if  you  take  all  the  cere- 
monies that  are  distinctly  recognised  as  having  this 
character  among  the  more  orthodox  Hindus.  The  num- 
ber, after  all,  is  immaterial;  it  is  the  fundamental  idea 
which  is  important.  As  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of 
the  sacraments  spreads,  especially  in  the  Western  world, 

262 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  263 

it  will  be  found  that  many  things  that  have  been  put 
aside  as  superstitious  will  come  back  with  a  new  light 
and  power.  Certain  ideas  which  were  cast  aside  at  the 
period  of  the  Reformation  were  thrown  aside  rather 
by  reaction  than  for  any  defensible  reason.  The  way 
in  which  many  of  the  thoughts  and  dogmas  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  were  pressed  among  the 
people,  the  widespread  ignorance  of  meanings  while 
forms  were  carefully  observed,  not  unnaturally  brought 
about  a  powerful  reaction  when  reason  began  to  chal 
lenge  the  ceremonies.  As  occult  knowledge  had  prac- 
tically fallen  into  the  background  among  the  great  mass 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood,  there  came  rejection 
of  that  which  could  not  be  rationally  explained.  As 
we  are  able  to  see  the  justification  for  very  much  that 
then  was  rejected,  however,  we  realise  that  many  of 
these  things  will  come  back.  And  if  we  think,  it  is  not 
unnatural  that  these  should  return.  Going  back  to  the 
early  days  of  religion  (I  am  thinking  now  of  Christianity, 
but  it  is  the  same  in  all  the  great  religions),  we  find  the 
Founder  and  his  immediate  disciples  who  shape  and 
mould  the  religion.  As  these  men  were  men  to  whom  the 
spiritual  world  was  familiar,  and  as  their  duty  was  to 
make  bridges  between  the  ordinary  mass  of  men  and  the 
great  spiritual  teachings  of  religion,  it  was  inevitable 
that  in  the  forms  of  worship  laid  down  by  them  there 
should  be  in  the  background  occult  truths.  Hence  we 
find  in  the  early  Church  the  great  institution  of  the  Mys- 
teries; and  I  shall  want,  later  on,  to  show  the  relation 
between  the  Mystery,  the  Sacrament,  and  the  great  leg- 
end of  the  Holy  Grail. 


264  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

Let  US  now  consider  what  a  sacrament  really  is.  I  do 
not  think  we  can  get  a  better  definition  than  in  the 
Catechism  of  the  Anglican  Church:  "An  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  an  inward  and  spiritual  grace" — something 
that  is  outer,  tangible,  that  the  senses  can  appreciate,  a 
material  object;  then,  with  that,  indissolubly  connected, 
certain  facts  of  the  invisible  world,  so  that  the  outer  sig^ 
is  able  to  act  as  a  channel  for  the  inner  reality.  But 
also,  under  the  heading  of  ''outward  and  visible  sign," 
you  want  something  beyond  the  material  object;  you 
want  a  material  gesture  and  material  words.  These 
three  things  are  always  present  in  a  sacrament;  some 
material  object  which  is  the  immediate  channel,  certain 
sounds  or  words  which  make  a  change  in  the  subtle 
material  mingled  with  the  denser  material  of  that  object, 
and  a  gesture  called  often  the  "sign  of  power,"  as  the 
words  are  called  "words  of  power."  Now  the  gesture 
must  be  one  through  which  magnetism  can  be  thrown 
on  to  the  object  which  is  affected  by  the  words. 

Let  us  see  how  those  facts  are  bound  together  in  the 
sacrament  itself,  and  what  is  their  connexion  with  the 
constitution  of  man  and  of  the  worlds  in  which  he  lives. 
The  worlds  with  which  the  man  is  connected,  for  our 
present  purpose,  we  can  take  as  the  physical,  astral, 
mental — the  three  worlds  in  which  turns  the  wheel  of 
births  and  death.  He  is  in  those  three — either  in  all  of 
them  together,  as  when  in  the  physical  world ;  in  two  of 
them,  as  when  in  the  astral  world ;  in  one  only  when  in 
the  heavenly  world.  For  remember  that  only  in  the 
physical  world  are  the  three  bodies  available  that  connect 
him  with  all  of  the  three  at  the  same  time.    In  these 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  265 

three  worlds,  then,  man  is  continually  living.  He  is 
related  to  them  by  his  physical  body,  astral  body,  and 
mental  body,  so  that  you  have  a  living  intelligence,  a 
spiritual  being,  who,  by  means  of  the  matter  that  he  has 
appropriated  in  these  three  worlds,  is  able  to  come  into 
contact  with  each  of  them.  But  now  arises  the  question : 
Given  a  spiritual  intelligence  clothed  in  this  triple  veil  of 
matter ;  given  the  fact  that  that  spiritual  intelligence,  by 
the  veil  of  matter,  is  in  contact  with  three  worlds — how 
shall  he  be  able  to  come  gradually  into  conscious  con- 
nexion with  each,  so  that  the  stream  of  spiritual  life, 
coming  down  from  the  spiritual  world,  may  at  once 
purify  the  matter  of  his  bodies,  illuminate  his  conscious- 
ness in  these  three  stages,  and  so  begin  the  great  work 
of  spiritualising  the  whole  man?  That  is  the  problem 
that  religion  has  had  to  solve.  So  far  as  ordinary  Protes- 
tantism is  concerned,  the  body  has  been  cast  aside  as  a 
very  temporary  possession,  only  occupied  by  the  spiritual 
intelligence  during  one  brief  life,  and  hardly  worth 
troubling  about.  Hence  the  body  has  become  very  much 
neglected  from  the  ordinary  standpoint  of  Protestant- 
ism, and  the  reaction  against  that  has  taken  the  form  of 
materialism,  so  that  you  find  people  rejecting  the  view  of 
the  worthlessness  of  the  body,  and  falling  into  a  mate- 
rialism in  which  the  body  is  made  the  most  important 
thing.  Instead  of  that,  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  great 
faiths,  the  body  was  regarded  as  a  valuable  possession, 
a  thing  to  be  made  holy,  to  be  sanctified,  in  order  that 
it  might  be  a  fitting  instrument  of  the  spiritual  intelli- 
gence therein  embodied. 

And  so,  in  all  these  earlier  days  of  religions,  continual 


2(^6  THE   CHANGING    WORLD 

relationships  were  being  made,  first  between  the  spir- 
itual world  and  the  lower  worlds,  and  then  between  the 
embodied  intelligence  and  the  bodies  that  that  intelli- 
gence is  wearing.  Hence  the  sacraments  which  should 
touch  both  body  and  consciousness,  which  should  sanc- 
tify the  material  vehicles  while  illuminating  the  spiritual 
intelligence,  which  should  make  the  whole  man  really 
spiritual  in  order  that  the  object  of  incarnation  might 
be  accomplished — that  matter  in  all  the  worlds  should 
be  rendered  the  obedient  servant  of  Spirit.  That  was 
the  object  of  the  sacrament.  Hence  the  necessity  for  the 
material  object  in  order  that  it  may  come  into  touch  with 
the  dense  body.  Hence  the  need  of  the  signs  in  order 
that,  by  the  vibrations  set  up,  sent  on  to  subtler  planes, 
the  subtler  bodies  might  be  set  vibrating,  and  be  able 
to  receive  the  downfall  of  spiritual  life.  Hence  also  the 
need  for  the  gesture,  so  that  the  magnetic  force  sent  out 
in  the  consecration  might  link  together  the  denser  and 
the  subtler  matter  by  this  bond  of  magnetism,  and  in 
that  way  might  make  the  whole  of  the  material  object  a 
vehicle  for  the  higher  life  while  preparing  the  bodies 
for  the  reception  of  that  downflow. 

Now  let  us,  in  order  to  work  out  these  principles,  take 
the  sacrament  of  Baptism.  In  this  you  know  that  you 
have  the  whole  of  these  three  conditions  of  a  sacrament 
present — water,  the  material  object;  the  words  of 
power;  the  consecration  of  the  water.  You  have  the 
words  of  consecration,  praying  God  to  sanctify  this 
water  to  the  mystical  washing  away  of  sin;  and  then 
you  have  the  sign  of  power — the  cross  made  over  the 
water — in  order  that  the  magnetism  from  the  fingers  of 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  267 

the  priest  may  magnetise  it,  and  be  the  link  between  the 
physical  water  and  the  astral  matter  which  interpene- 
trates it. 

I  pause  for  a  moment  on  the  phrase  "words  of  power." 
The  whole  understanding  and  use  of  such  words  de- 
pends on  the  fact  that  every  sound  causes  certain  definite 
vibrations.  Wherever  there  is  a  sound  there  is  a  cor- 
related vibration.  Now  a  mantra,  or  word  of  power,  is 
a  certain  definite  succession  of  sounds  made  by  an  Oc- 
cultist in  order  to  bring  about  certain  definite  results. 
That  is  as  much  a  scientific  fact  as  a  fact  that  none  of  you 
would  challenge — ^that  you  can  by  producing  a  musical 
note  set  up  vibrations  in  a  glass  or  rod  or  string  which 
is  sympathetic.  You  remember  the  experiments  of  Tyn- 
dall.  He  would  show  how  by  a  certain  sound  you  could 
shiver  a  piece  of  glass.  What  really  happens  ?  The  glass 
begins  to  vibrate.  As  the  vibrations  are  made  by  the 
note,  it  repeats  them;  if  it  is  more  than  the  glass  can 
respond  to,  the  particles  are  torn  asunder  and  the  glass 
is  broken.  Exactly  a  similar  line  of  thought  conducts 
you  to  the  use  and  meaning  of  the  mantra.  The  Oc- 
cultist tries  certain  sounds.  He  finds  out  what  are  the 
sounds  that  bring  about  the  vibrations  that  he  desires. 
Having  discovered  that  exeperimentally,  he  puts  those 
sounds  into  a  definite  order  and  then  gives  a  sentence 
which  will  reproduce  that  sequence  of  sounds  when- 
ever the  sentence  is  uttered.  This  sequence  of  sounds 
causes  vibrations,  which  in  their  turn  set  up  vibrations 
in  the  subtle  bodies.  The  more  the  mantra  is  repeated, 
the  more  powerful  the  result.  Hence  the  use  of  repeti- 
tion that  you  find  so  much  in  Church  formulae.  Hence  the 


268  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

use  of  the  rosary,  so  that  you  may  not  have  the  jar  of 
counting  in  producing  the  vibrations  that  you  require. 
Now  it  is  obvious  that  a  mantra  cannot  be  translated 
without  losing  part  of  its  power.  It  may  still  have  a 
power  from  the  thought  which  is  in  it,  but  the  sequence 
of  sounds  is  affected.  Hence  the  special  value  of  the 
mantra  apart  from  the  thought  which  the  words  embody. 
Hence  the  wisdom  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  Catholic 
Churches  in  using  their  words  of  power  as  given  by  the 
Occultists  who  devised  them.  Unfortunately,  in  the  Re- 
formation, occult  knowledge  being  at  a  discount,  it 
was  thought  you  could  translate  the  words  of  power 
without  losing  the  effect.  You  keep  the  effect  caused  by 
the  thought ;  you  lose  a  very  large  part  of  the  mechanical 
effect  caused  by  the  sounds.  What  is  lost  of  ordinary 
mechanical  effect  has  to  be  brought  about  by  devotion 
or  will-power;  whereas  if  you  produce  the  vibrations 
mechanically,  you  then  have  all  your  devotion  and  will- 
power left  undiminished  to  bring  about  the  higher  re- 
sults. There  is  the  value  of  the  scientific  ways  of  dealing 
with  the  bodies.  It  is  not  a  question  of  consciousness 
now,  but  of  the  bodies,  and  only  secondarily  of  the  effect 
on  the  consciousness  of  the  vibrations  of  the  bodies; 
yet  that  also  cannot  be  left  out.  Just  as  a  change  in  con- 
sciousness brings  about  a  certain  vibration,  so  does  a  vi- 
bration bring  about  a  corresponding  change  in  conscious- 
ness. Hence  to  set  up  right  vibrations  helps  the  con- 
sciousness to  remain  in  a  certain  condition,  and  we 
naturally  find  that  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  Catholic 
Churches  the  effects  produced  by  the  words  of  the  sacra- 
ment are  greater  than  these  produced  in  Churches  where 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  269 

the  words  of  power  are  translated.  One  advantage  that 
comes  out  of  that  is  that,  in  the  first  case,  where  the  priest 
is  using  the  words  that  themselves  make  the  vibrations, 
the  man's  character,  devotion,  and  knowledge  are  not  as 
important  as  they  are  in  the  case  where  the  mechanical 
effect  is  lost,  and  the  priest  must  supply  by  his  own  devo- 
tion and  will-power  that  which  could  be  more  readily  pro- 
duced by  the  mantra.  It  is  out  of  that  that  has  come  the 
statement  that  the  unworthiness  of  the  priest  does  not 
destroy  the  worth  of  the  sacrament.  Certainly  it  is  not  as 
potent  where  the  priest  is  unworthy,  but  where  the  mech- 
anism is  perfect,  the  worker  not  being  perfect  is  less 
important. 

Now  if  a  clairvoyant  watches  what  is  done  when  a 
sacrament  is  taking  place,  he  sees  that  on  the  repetition 
of  the  words  of  consecration  and  the  making  of  the  sign 
of  power  a  visible  change  occurs  in  the  consecrated  ob- 
ject. It  is  most  marked  if  we  turn  to  the  Mass,  or  Holy 
Communion.  You  have  there  on  the  altar  the  sacred  ele- 
ments— ^the  bread  and  the  wine.  According  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  doctrine,  at  the  words  of  power,  what  is  called 
"transubstantiation"  takes  place.  That  teaching  has  been 
very  much  misunderstood  by  the  ordinary  Protestant. 
He  does  not  realise  that  in  every  visible  object  there  is 
an  invisible  and  formative  idea ;  that  that  idea,  working 
along  ordinary  lines,  produces  one  of  the  ordinary  ob- 
jects that  you  see  around  you;  but  that  if  the  idea  be 
changed  by  the  use  of  a  word  of  pow«r,  a  mantra,  that 
that  change  of  the  idea  produces  a  change  of  astral  mat- 
ter, and  in  the  etheric  and  even  dense  physical  matter 
also  a  change  of  vibration  is  set  up.  And  although  it  is 


270  THE   CHANGING    WORLD 

true  that  in  the  densest  matter  the  vibration  is  not  power- 
ful enough  to  alter  the  arrangement  of  the  particles,  it  is 
true  that  in  all  the  most  important  part  of  that  object 
a  change  has  occurred,  and  it  is  that  change  which  is  in- 
dicated by  the  word  **transubstantiation."  No  instructed 
Roman  Catholic  ever  was  foolish  enough  to  think  any- 
thing save  that  which  I  am  now  putting  to  you.  Now  if 
that  idea  seems  strange,  let  me  remind  you  of  a  simple 
fact  which  will  throw  light  on  the  whole  thing.  Students 
of  organic  chemistry  are  familiar  with  isometric  com- 
pounds. Those  compounds  are  made  up  of  exactly  the 
same  number  of  the  same  chemical  elements.  Neverthe- 
less, the  chemist  will  tell  you  that  according  to  the  inner 
arrangement  of  those  elements  will  be  the  qualities  of  the 
thing.  You  may  have  in  some  of  the  higher  carbon  com- 
pounds (even  so  low  down  as  where  you  have  entering 
into  the  base  only  four  carbon  atoms)  an  arrangement  or 
rearrangement  of  those  elements  such  as  to  give  you  en- 
tirely different  qualities — in  one  case  a  poison,  in  the 
other  harmless.  That  change  of  arrangement  makes  all 
the  difference.  It  is  so  strange,  then,  that  in  changing  the 
inner  arrangement  the  qualities  change  ?  In  the  invisible 
worlds  these  things  can  be  seen,  so  that  that  piece  of 
opaque  bread,  when  the  words  are  spoken,  utterly 
changes  in  appearance,  becoming  luminous  and  shining 
out  in  every  direction.  Now  the  moment  one  sees  that. 
one  begins  to  realise  what  a  sacrament  means  from  the 
material  standpoint.  You  are  dealing  with  an  object  that 
can  be  changed  in  its  qualities.  You  are  reconstituting 
the  subtle  portions  of  that  by  the  forces  you  are  bringing 
to  bear  on  it.    With  what  object?    In  order  that,  from 


THE  SACRAMENTAL   LIFE  27 1 

the  planes  above  the  mental,  spiritual  power  pouring 
down  may  find  a  vehicle  which  is  able  to  assimilate  it 
and  carry  it  down  to  the  densest  plane  of  matter,  and 
by  that  vehicle  may  be  passed  on  to  those  who  are 
partakers  of  the  sacrament.  And  not  only  do  you  see 
that  change  appearing  in  the  elements,  but  you  see  also 
that  that  change  draws  to  the  altar  numbers  of  those 
whom  the  Hindus  call  Devas,  and  the  Christians  call 
Angels,  who  lend  their  powers  to  the  helping  of  the 
worshippers,  and  change  the  atmosphere  of  the  whole 
place  to  which  they  throng. 

Now  the  moment  anyone  sees  this,  he  realises  that 
much  has  to  come  back  to  some  of  the  religious  sects  of 
the  West  in  order  to  make  them  what  they  ought  to  be. 
And  the  result  of  losing  sight  of  all  this  inner  part  of  the 
Christian  ceremonies,  rites,  and  formulae  has  been  the 
tendency  to  grow  more  and  more  materialistic,  until  you 
find  that  the  ordinary  Protestant  knows  of  nothing  as 
between  himself  and  God,  nothing  of  the  work  of  all  that 
mighty  hierarchy  of  spiritual  intelligences  who  form  the 
ladder  between  earth  and  heaven.  Hence  the  gradual 
disappearance  from  the  modern  mind  of  the  teaching  of 
the  ministry  of  Angels.  How  much  of  it  has  slipped  out 
of  knowledge,  and  how  much  all  life  has  lost  of  beauty 
by  the  passing  away  of  these  links  between  the  higher 
and  lower  worlds.  When  a  person  takes  the  sacrament, 
you  have  there  the  actual  physical  touch  all  along  the 
material  lines,  a  real  purification  of  the  body  as  well  as 
illumination  of  the  intelligence.  But  you  may  say: 
*'Does  it  all  turn  on  this  outward  ceremony — these  words 
and  signs?"    No.    There  is,  in  addition  to  that,  in  the 


2^2  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

consciousness  of  the  worshipper,  a  tremendous  potency 
which  assimilates  that  which  pours  down  from  the  higher 
worlds.  And  although  it  be  true  that  that  potency  is 
very  much  more  readily  assimilated  when  all  the  material 
coverings  have  been  tuned  and  made  ready  to  receive  it, 
none  the  less  is  it  also  true  that  even  where  that  part  of 
the  sacrament  is  wanting  it  is  a  veritable  means  of  grace 
to  those  who  realise  the  inner  meaning,  although  not 
understanding  the  importance  of  the  outer  form.  I  think 
that  there  is  little  doubt  that,  as  Occultism  spreads,  this 
will  all  come  back  to  the  Churches ;  for  it  is  part  of  the 
Theosophical  mission  to  restore  that  which  has  been 
lost,  to  bring  to  knowledge  again  that  which  has  been 
forgotten. 

And  there  are  also  other  things  in  relation  to  this 
which  will  come  into  modern  life  again  as  the  truth  of 
the  sacrament  is  recognised.  So  many  discussions  there 
have  been  about  the  Apostolic  Succession,  the  passing  of 
power  from  one  to  another  by  a  sacrament,  not  recog- 
nised as  a  sacrament  in  some  part  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  but  recognised  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as 
the  Sacrament  of  Holy  Orders.  There,  again,  a  physical 
passing  of  magnetism ;  there,  again,  a  definite  succession, 
a  hierarchy  which  is  an  image  of  the  hierarchy  in  higher 
worlds.  For  always  religions  have  reflexions  of  the 
realities  of  the  higher  worlds,  and  these  reflexions  have 
their  power  and  their  use.  Now,  in  the  ordinary  Prot- 
estant community,  and  even  in  the  great  Anglican  Church 
itself,  only  two  sacraments  are  normally  recognised — ^the 
sacrament  of  the  altar  and  that  of  the  font.  Outside 
those,  as  you  know,  the  Greek  and  Roman  Catholic 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  273 

Giurches  have  others  in  addition  to  that  of  Holy  Orders 
above  mentioned — all  of  them,  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  sacramental  life,  important.  They  have  the  Sacra- 
ment of  Confirmation ;  but  that  ought  surely  to  be  rec- 
ognised as  a  sacrament  everywhere,  for  you  have  there 
the  essential  parts  of  the  sacrament  and  the  conveying 
of  a  spiritual  power.  So  also  they  have  the  Sacrament 
of  Penance,  in  which  the  spiritual  power  is  again  con- 
veyed which  enables  the  penitent  by  effort  and  repent- 
ance to  regain  spiritual  strength  when  it  has  been  in- 
jured by  sin.  So  you  have  also  the  Sacrament  of  Matri- 
mony, and  the  loss  of  the  sacramental  side  of  marriage 
has  led  very  largely  to  its  degradation  in  Protestant  coun- 
tries. So  also  the  Sacrament  of  Extreme  Unction,  which 
is,  curiously  enough,  coming  back  among  Protestants. 
Look  at  the  accounts  of  the  Guilds  of  Healing  estab- 
lished in  the  Church — no  less  than  three  in  the  Anglican 
community.  They  have  restored  the  sacramental  use  of 
oil,  founding  themselves  upon  a  passage  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament :  "Is  any  sick,  let  him  call  the  elders  of  the  church, 
and  let  them  pray  over  him,  anointing  him  with  oil  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord" — a  sacramental  act.  You  have  the  oil 
as  the  vehicle  of  the  magnetism,  the  name  of  the  Lord  as 
the  word  of  power,  and  in  putting  on  the  oil  ever  the  sign 
of  the  Cross  is  used.  Now  it  is  a  very  significant  thing 
that  that  has  been  brought  back  definitely  by  members  of 
the  Anglican  Church,  priests  and  laity,  to-day ;  and  one 
wonders  very  much  why  in  the  Roman  Catholic  com- 
munity, with  the  occult  knowledge  of  its  leaders,  it  has 
that  use  of  sacramental  oil  only  at  the  death-moment, 
when  its  great  value  cannot  be  utilised.   That  is  one  of 

18 


274  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

the  points  I  cannot  quite  make  out  in  studying  the 
ritual  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. ^ 

Now,  supposing  that  you  recognise  that  fact  of  a 
sacrament,  how  would  it  affect  your  ordinary  daily  life? 
It  would  gradually  discipline  your  mind  to  realise  that 
all  life  is  sacramental,  rightly  understood;  that  every 
outer  action  should  be  connected  with  a  spiritual  truth ; 
and  in  this  way  all  your  actions  would  cease  to  be  hin- 
drances, and  would  tend  to  become  helpers.  Among  the 
Hindus  this  is  largely  recognised,  for  all  the  great  ac- 
tions of  the  daily  life  with  them  are  sacramental.  Every 
true  Hindu,  on  waking,  prays  that  as  his  eyes  open  to 
the  light  of  the  day,  so  his  Spirit  may  open  to  the  light 
of  the  inner  Self.  In  his  daily  bath,  as  he  pours  the  water 
over  his  body,  his  prayer  is,  that  as  the  water  washes  the 
body,  so  may  the  mind  be  cleansed  and  the  heart  puri- 
fied. All  the  bodily  actions  are  consecrated  as  the  re- 
flexions of  the  spirtual  life,  and  the  effect  of  that  is  to 
make  a  disciplined,  self-controlled,  balanced  character. 
The  daily  training  gradually  makes  the  whole  life  or- 
derly ;  and  it  is  not  without  significance  that  in  the  relig- 
ions where  the  sacramental  life  is  realised,  there  it  is 
that  you  find  the  type  of  character  that  all  speak  of  as 
the  Saint — a  man  who  is  ever  alive  to  the  realities  of  the 
higher  world ;  the  man  who  lives  in  the  Spirit,  although 
also  living  in  the  body. 

Now  I  said  that  this  idea  was  connected  with  the  Mys- 
teries and  with  the  Grail.  Let  me  try  and  show-  you 
how;  and  in  this  I  am  using  the  thought  of  the  great 

^  A  Roman  Catholic  friend  tells  me  that  it  is  also  used  in  cases  of 
great  danger,  and  that  a  friend  of  hers  was  thrice  raised  by  it  from 
what  threatened  to  be  a  deathbed. 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  275 

French  writer,  Schure,  who,  writing  on  the  mystical  idea 
in  the  music  of  Wagner,  pointed  out  the  close  resem- 
blances  and  differences  between  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass 
and  the  legend  of  the  Grail.  Now  it  is  a  historical  fact, 
apparently,  that  with  the  disappearance  of  the  Mysteries 
from  Europe  and  the  Christian  Church,  this  legend  be- 
gan slowly  to  work  its  way  among  the  European  nations. 
There  were  the  Mysteries  of  Jesus,  and  those  played 
in  the  Christian  Church  exactly  the  same  part  that  is 
played  by  the  Yoga  training,  say,  in  Hinduism  or  Budd- 
hism. There  was  the  life  of  the  ordinary  sacraments 
for  the  ordinary  believer.  Those  were  the  means 
whereby  the  true  believer  came  into  touch  with  the 
higher  worlds.  But  when  a  man  had  learned  all  he  could 
in  the  outer  circle  of  the  Church,  when  he  had  used  the 
sacramental  means  of  grace  so  that  he  was  able  to 
say  that  his  life  was  pure,  that  he  had  been  "for  a  long 
time  conscious  of  no  transgression,"  then  he  was  allowed 
to  present  himself  as  candidate  for  the  Mysteries  of 
Jesus.  Within  those  Mysteries  the  realities  replaced 
the  outer  mechanism  of  the  sacrament.  There,  no  longer 
by  gift  from  without,  as  in  the  sacrament,  but  by  effort 
and  struggle  the  vision  of  the  spiritual  life  was  attained. 
And  when  those  Mysteries  passed  away,  not  because 
there  were  not  teachers,  but  because  there  were  no  pupils 
ready  to  be  taught,  then  it  was  that  this  story  of  the 
Grail  was  given  as  an  announcement,  however  veiled, 
that  the  ancient  Path  still  remained  open  to  the  worthy 
aspirant.  For  what  is  the  inner  meaning  of  the  Grail, 
and  how  do  the  main  points  of  it  connect  with  the 
Christian  sacrament?     Different,  yet  similar.     In  the 


or -V.  ' 


276  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

one  it  is  the  outer  form  of  bread  and  wine,  symbolising 
the  body  and  blood  of  Christ;  in  the  other,  the  sacred 
cup,  in  which  it  was  said  that  once  a  year  the  blood  of 
Christ  shone  out  with  brilliant  and  purifying  light.  In 
both  an  outer  symbol.  But  in  the  sacrament  that  outer 
symbol  is  given  to  the  believer,  and,  without  effort  of  his 
own,  the  greater  Self  outside  him  gives  to  the  weaker 
Self  within.  But  in  the  Grail  it  is  by  effort  and  struggle, 
by  temptation  and  resistance,  that  the  vision  becomes 
possible.  He  has  entered  on  the  Path  where  outer  aid 
is  withdrawn,  and  where  the  inner  power  must  replace 
the  outer  assistance.  In  the  Church  sacrament,  faith  is 
the  means  whereby  the  truth  must  be  attained.  In  the 
inner,  vision  and  knowledge  take  the  place  of  faith,  for 
the  successful  knight  sees  the  vision  of  the  Grail — ^the 
Cup,  with  all  its  glory,  is  revealed  before  him.  And  so  in 
the  outer  a  dogma  is  taught,  in  the  inner  there  is  knowl- 
edge. But  what  is  a  dogma?  Knowledge  imposed  by 
authority.  In  the  Grail  it  is  an  inner  revelation,  a  true 
initiation  into  the  Mysteries ;  and  it  is  that  inner  revela- 
tion which  takes  the  place  of  dogma,  a  revelation  which 
comes  by  inner  illumination  instead  of  being  taught  by 
the  outer  authority  of  a  Church.  And  so  you  find 
that  in  that  vision  the  dove  appears — symbol  of  inspira- 
tion. The  inspiration  of  the  inner  revelation  is  ever 
there,  and  that  inner  revelation  belongs  to  the  body  of 
the  Initiates,  the  elect  out  of  all  humanity.  They  hand 
it  on  to  the  world  outside,  that  which  is  knowledge  to 
them  becoming  dogma  to  the  outer  world.  And  so  you 
can  see  that  in  the  Grail  legend  the  teaching  of  the 
Mysteries  was  symbolically  conveyed,  and  those  who 


THE  SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  277 

were  able  to  pierce  through  the  meaning  of  the  legend 
had  their  feet  placed  upon  the  Path  where  the  symbols 
beecame  reality ;  the  principle  running  through  was  iden- 
tical. And  so  the  lesson  was  taught  that  for  those  who 
cannot  yet  themselves  build  a  bridge  to  the  higher  world, 
the  outer  sacrament  is  given  as  the  bridge  to  unite  the 
two ;  but  when  the  man  is  able  to  make  his  own  bridge, 
the  sacrament  for  him  is  no  longer  necessary.  He 
can  reach  the  worlds  above  without  the  assistance  of  the 
bridge,  and  then  he  becomes  the  Knight  of  the  Grail. 
That  is  still  true.  The  Churches  must  ever  give  the 
sacraments,  because  the  masses  of  their  believers  are  not 
yet  evolved  enough  to  be  able  to  build  their  own  bridge. 
For  those  who  have  reached  the  point  in  spiritual  man- 
hood where  the  other  worlds  are  known  and  are  ever 
present  in  consciousness,  for  them  the  value  of  the  sacra- 
ment is  over,  and  the  reality  of  the  inner  life  no  longer 
needs  the  grace  that  is  conveyed  by  the  sacrament. 

Now  if  you  realise  the  facts  I  have  been  putting  to 
you,  if  you  understand  what  the  sacrament  means  and 
what  its  value  is,  you  will  never  speak  lightly,  contemptu- 
ously of  it,  remembering  that  those  who  need  it  receive 
in  it  a  real  power,  and  that  those  who  have  gone  beyond 
that  necessity  are  those  who  are  ever  the  tenderest  to 
the  souls  that  still  require  it,  and  are  careful  that  with 
their  wisdom  they  do  not  bewilder  the  ignorant,  that 
.they  do  not  lessen  the  means  of  grace  for  those  who  are 
unable  to  reach  knowledge  for  themselves.  And  inas- 
much as  it  is  the  duty  of  the  members  of  the  Theosoph- 
ical  Society  to  know  these  facts  of  the  different  worlds, 
and  to  use  them  for  the  helping  of  otliers,  they  have  the 


278  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

duty  of  trying  to  bring  back  the  realisation  of  all  the  im- 
mense value  which  may  be  found  in  these  rites  which  are 
little  understood  by  the  more  skeptical  communities  to- 
day. That  your  mission  and  your  privilege.  Whether 
in  your  own  religious  communities  you  still  find  help  or 
not  in  these  outer  veils  of  spiritual  things,  that  is  a  com- 
paratively small  matter.  As  long  as  they  help  you,  use 
them  to  the  utmost;  and  when  you  no  longer  need  them, 
then  treat  them  with  the  reverence  which  is  due  to  them, 
and  explain  them  to  those  who  do  not  understand  them. 
Not  very,  very  long  will  pass  before  all  and  much  more 
than  I  am  saying  to  you  will  become  common  knowledge 
in  the  Churches.  Yours  the  privilege  of  knowing  a  little 
sooner  than  the  outside  world;  not  because  you  are 
specially  favoured,  but  in  order  that  you  may  carry 
knowledge  to  the  outside  world.  For  every  one  of  you 
ought  to  lead  the  sacramental  life,  and  that  means  that 
you  shall  be  a  channel  by  which  the  spiritual  forces  shall 
pour  down  and  spread  through  you  to  those  who  sur- 
round you,  vivifying  and  spiritualising  the  world.  That 
your  privilege,  from  the  knowledge  that  has  come  to 
you ;  that  your  duty,  for  knowledge  brings  responsibility. 
And  just  in  proportion  as  you  understand  the  occult 
truths  out  of  which  the  exoteric  religions  have  sprung, 
so  will  you  try  to  make  those  religions  deeper,  more 
vital,  more  spiritualising  to  all  that  belong  to  them,  so 
that  you  may  truly  act  as  servants  of  religion,  for  such 
servants  every  lover  of  the  Divine  Wisdom  should  be. 


Lecture  V 
Address  on  White  Lotus  Day  1909 

All  over  the  world  to-day  the  sun  in  rising  has  seen  in 
country  after  country  men  and  women  gathering  to- 
gether to  bear  in  memory  those  who  have  passed  onward 
through  the  gate  of  death,  but  who,  in  passing  through 
the  gate,  have  remained  even  more  living  than  they 
were  when  they  carried  the  burden  of  the  flesh;  men 
and  women  who  have  left  their  names  behind  them  as 
workers  for  the  Ancient  Wisdom  in  its  modern  dress, 
and  whose  memories  remain  dear  and  precious  because 
of  the  work  they  did,  because  of  the  message  they 
spread. 

We  have  listened  this  evening  to  verses  from  the 
Bhagavad-Gita,  to  lines  from  The  Light  of  Asia.  In 
India,  on  the  early  morning  of  to-day,  words  were  read 
from  that  same  sacred  Scripture  of  the  eastern  land, 
spoken  there  in  its  ancient  tongue,  the  Samskrit.  In 
town  after  town,  village  after  village,  the  memory  of 
those  same  lives  is  kept  in  mind.  There  also  The  Light 
of  Asia  has  been  read,  and  the  sacred  memory  of  the 
Buddha  has  been  recalled.  And  all  over  India,  from  the 
Northern  Himalayas  down  to  the  South,  thousands  of 
the  poor  have  been  fed  by  the  branches  of  our  Society  in 

279 


280  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

memory  of  those  who  lived,  of  those  who  passed  away, 
some  of  whom  have  come  back  to  earth  again.  And  as 
the  sun  came  onwards  along  its  western  path,  it  lighted 
up  other  countries  also,  which  kept  the  same  memory, 
used  the  same  books,  spoke  the  same  names,  and  so 
across  Italy,  and  Russia,  and  Germany,  and  then  in 
France,  and  now  here,  and  a  few  hours  hence  across  the 
Atlantic,  in  America,  the  same  memories  will  be  recalled, 
the  same  books  will  be  read,  the  same  thoughts  will  be 
spoken  and  will  spread  from  heart  to  heart.  For  all 
round  the  globe  this  day  is  kept  sacred  in  memory  of 
those  who  died,  as  men  say,  amongst  us,  but  who  live  to 
carry  on  the  mighty  work  that  here  they  took  up  for  the 
brief  day  of  mortal  life.  And  we  think  of  our  dead, 
our  truly  living,  not  with  sorrow,  not  with  mourning, 
but  with  glad  hearts  and  thankful  lips,  for  we  know  that 
death  is  nothing  but  a  passing  from  one  world  to  an- 
other, a  dropping  of  one  body  for  the  more  effective 
wearing  of  a  subtler,  finer,  more  powerful  one  than  that 
which,  outworn,  is  cast  away.  For  we  have  learned,  and 
some  of  us  know  practically,  that  that  is  true  which  is 
written  in  that  same  Eastern  Scripture  of  which  we 
heard  some  verses  to-day,  that  the  Dweller  in  the  body 
throws  aside  the  outworn  body  as  a  man  throws  aside 
garments  outworn ;  and  as  the  man  takes  new  garments 
for  his  wearing,  so  does  the  Dweller  in  the  body  take 
new  bodies  for  his  wearing,  for  new  days  of  a  never- 
ending,  an  immortal  life. 

And  we  think  of  those  who  have  gone  onward  to-day 
— not  only  of  our  greatest,  but  of  all  who  have  worked 
and  striven  for  the  same  great  cause.     And  perhaps  it  is 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I9O9  28 1 

fitting  that  first  in  that  great  roll  we  should  send  message 
of  love  to  the  one  who  has  left  us  last,  who  laboured  so 
long  and  so  faithfully  in  France — Dr.  Pascal — the  Gen- 
eral Secretary  there,  who  only  a  few  weeks  since  passed 
to  the  rest  so  well  deserved.  A  weary  time  had  he 
in  the  passing;  years  of  weakness,  of  suffering,  of  ever- 
decreasing  strength.  And  many  ask,  when  they  see  so 
long  an  illness  and  so  much  of  pain,  when  they  see  a 
life  that  was  bright  and  helpful  and  full  of  service  set 
to  this  world  in  so  long  a  twilight  of  sadness  and  suf- 
fering, sometimes  they  ask:  "Why  should  one  who 
served  so  well  have  so  long  and  so  sad  a  passing  to  the 
other  side  ?"  But  people  do  not  always  understand  that, 
when  a  man  has  worked  well  and  done  good  service,  ere 
he  goes  to  his  rest  for  a  little  time  on  the  other  side,  it 
is  well  for  him  to  pay  the  debts  incurred,  which  other- 
wise would  hamper  the  new  life  when  it  comes  back  to 
earth;  and  that  there  can  be  no  better  karma — sad  as 
it  may  seem  to  the  outward  sight — than  when  these 
ties  of  the  past  are  fully  paid  before  the  day  of  pass- 
ing comes,  so  that  the  new  birth  is  unshadowed  by  the 
shadows  of  the  past,  and  debt  is  paid  which  otherwise 
would  be  demanded  when  the  new  life  is  born.  So  that 
in  a  life  like  that,  which  has  ended  sadly,  as  men  say, 
with  body  failing  and  brain  failing,  looking  at  that  with 
seeing  eyes  we  see  the  preparing  for  a  better  birth,  a 
greater  service,  and  we  know  that  it  is  well  that  the 
debt  was  paid,  and  that  the  new  life  shall  come  unen- 
cumbered with  the  sad  heritage  of  the  past.  And  so  to 
our  friend  to-night  we  send  messages  of  love  and  glad- 
ness that  the  debt  is  paid,  thankfulness  that  he  has  passed 


282  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

over,  SO  that  he  may  come  back  again  to  work  under 
conditions  fairer,  nobler,  more  full  of  promise  than 
those  in  which  he  worked  so  bravely  and  so  nobly 
through  the  life  that  now  has  closed. 

And  as  we  look  back  we  see  the  faces  of  many  friends, 
all  of  whom  we  commemorate — some  of  our  own 
country,  some  of  other  lands,  some  near  at  hand,  and 
some  far  off,  who  have  passed  to  the  other  side  in  order 
that  they  may  return.  For  you  remember  that  it  is 
written:  "Certain  is  death  to  the  born,  and  certain  is 
birth  to  the  dead."  And  those  who  have  passed  on- 
ward are  some  of  them  turning  their  faces  earthward 
once  again,  because  the  times  demand  fresh  workers,  and 
much  is  to  be  done  in  the  years  that  are  dawning  upon  us. 

And  one  man  stands  out  strongly  in  the  minds  of  all, 
our  President,  the  President-Founder,  who  passed  away 
only  two  brief  years  since,  and  who  is  residing  in  his 
Master's  home,  but  not  altogether  resting  as  men  call 
rest,  inasmuch  as  he  is  ever  eagerly  working  for  the 
Movement  he  loved  and  loves,  and  longing  for  the  day 
when  he  shall  be  permitted  to  take  again  a  body  to  do 
once  more  the  work  to  which  for  many  lives  he  has  been 
devoted. 

And  there  rises  the  greatest  name  of  all,  H.  P.  Bla- 
vatsky,  the  name  of  her  who  threw  down  the  body  she 
was  wearing  on  this  8th  of  May,  which,  for  her  dear 
sake,  was  chosen  as  the  day  of  commemoration  of  all 
our  workers  who  have  passed  onward — her  name  dear- 
est and  nearest  to  our  hearts,  the  Messsenger  of  the 
Lodge,  she  who  was  chosen  to  bring  back  to  a  world  in 
darkness  the  light  which  she  carried  so  bravely  and  un- 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I909  283 

flinchingly  through  a  life  of  suffering  and  toil.  And 
strange  is  her  recompense,  that  she,  round  whom  so 
many  quarrels  arose,  she  who  was  a  sign  of  storm  and 
dispute  through  the  warrior  life  that  she  led,  she  who 
saw  the  Society  well-nigh  crumble  round  her  in  those 
days  of  the  Coulomb  plot,  when  all  over  the  world  it 
seemed  that  Theosophy  was  doomed  to  popular  contempt, 
and  deserted  by  most  who  at  one  time  had  welcomed  it ; 
she  who,  wherever  she  went,  met  storm  and  trouble,  who 
perhaps  was  more  loved  and  more  hated  than  anyone  of 
our  own  time,  she  has  now  the  recompense  that  hers  is 
the  one  name  which  is  everywhere  beloved  through  the 
great  Society  of  which  she  and  her  colleague  were  the 
founders,  and  also  among  those  who  have  gone  out  of 
it  through  the  past  years,  those  who  left  it  in  the  Judge 
secession,  those  who  have  gone  out  since ;  hers  is  the  one 
name  that  unifies,  to  whom  all  look  back  as  teacher  and 
as  friend.  And  a  great  and  a  beautiful  lesson  grows  out 
of  that,  that  although  life  separates,  death  unifies;  and 
those  who  in  life  went  away,  as  it  seemed,  from  the 
movement  that  she  made,  look  back  to  her  as  founder, 
and  round  her  name,  among  the  prominent  people  inside 
and  outside  the  Society,  there  runs  to-day  absolute  una- 
nimity, and  a  peace  without  one  ripple  of  dissent. 

And  to  me  that  seems  a  very  beautiful  thing,  that  the 
name  that  was  the  name  of  strife  and  of  combat  has 
become  the  one  name  which  is  recognised  as  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Movement  everywhere,  no  matter  by  what 
passing  changes  that  Movement  may  have  been  affected. 
Knd  it  carries  with  it  a  valuable  lesson.  These  changes 
that  we  think  so  much  of  do  not  matter :  all  the  storms 


284  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

and  troubles  are  of  no  account ;  on  this  great  advancing 
tide  of  truth  and  light,  it  matters  not  what  apparent 
storms  may  come,  what  rocks  may  be  in  the  way,  what 
angry  waves  may  rise  and  break,  what  feelings  may  be 
expressed — the  whole  of  it  vanishes  in  the  face  of  the 
great  unifier.  Death;  and  those  who  were  rent  asunder 
because  they  thought  more  of  personalities  than  of 
principles,  they  catch  sight  again  of  the  principle  when 
death  has  smoothed  away  the  difficulties  of  the  persons 
over  whom  they  quarrelled.  And  so,  looking  back  to 
her  to-day,  we  can  see  in  her  life  and  death  a  presage  of 
the  future.  None  of  the  storms  matter,  and  none  of  the 
secessions  and  divisions  count  in  the  great  work.  They 
are  all  mere  trivial  incidents  of  passing  days,  and  the  one 
great  Life  rolls  on,  only  the  richer  for  the  divergence, 
only  the  fuller  for  the  differences  which  it  catches  up 
and  blends  into  one. 

And  on  this  day,  looking  backward  to  those  who  have 
gone  through  death's  portal,  shall  we  not  also  look  for- 
ward to  those  who  are  coming  back  through  birth's 
portal  to  work  in  the  Movement  in  the  future  as  they 
worked  in  the  Movement  in  the  past?  How  far  has  it 
struck  you,  during  the  days  of  storm  and  stress  through 
which  you  have  been  passing,  that  to  those  who  believe 
in  Reincarnation  and  Karma  there  is  no  possibility  of 
real  separation,  no  possibility  of  lasting  discord?  For 
those  who  went  far  away  apparently  from  the  Move- 
ment, or  who  left  it  by  the  gateway  of  death,  see  on  the 
other  side  the  fundamental  unity,  even  though  on  this 
side,  for  a  while,  they  may  have  been  blinded  by  the  su- 
perficial differences,  and  join  together  in  the  work  from 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I9O9  285 

which,  on  this  side  perhaps,  for  the  moment,  they  had 
let  themselves  slip  away  for  some  trivial  discord,  some 
passing  divergence  of  opinion.  Take  that  great  man 
amongst  us  round  whom  raged  the  last  great  struggle, 
the  one  before  the  struggle  which  is  now  nearing  its 
close — W.  Q.  Judge — one  of  the  greatest  and  noblest 
workers  in  our  Movement,  even  though  in  the  last  days 
of  his  life  he  made  the  great  rent  in  the  Theosophical 
Society  which  cost  us  for  the  time  pretty  well  the  whole 
Society  in  America.  He  again,  winning  clearer  vision  on 
the  other  side  after  something  of  difficulty  and  some- 
thing of  struggle  (for  the  man  was  strong,  and  was  not 
easy  to  move  or  change  even  when  the  physical  body 
had  been  cast  away),  he  after  a  while  worked  his  way 
through  the  mistake  that  had  been  made,  and  has  again 
thrown  his  life  force,  his  enormous  energy  into  the 
Movement  of  which  the  outer  partial  manifestation  here 
is  the  Theosophical  Society,  and  into  that  Theosophical 
Society  also.  For  remember  that  the  Theosophical  Soci- 
ety is  only  the  partial  manifestation  of  that  great  stream 
of  Life  which  is  flowing  in  the  other  worlds,  and  of 
which  some  appears  here.  This  great  Theosophical 
stream  is  like  one  of  those  rivers  which  flows  under- 
ground, and  then  bubbles  up  above  the  ground  so  that  all 
can  see.  And  the  river  of  the  Ancient  Wisdom,  with  its 
source  in  the  Great  Lodge  of  the  Masters,  is  out  of 
sight  for  the  greater  part  of  its  course,  in  worlds  greater 
and  higher  than  this,  and  then  comes  up  above  the 
earthly  surface  and  shows  itself  partially  in  what  we  call 
the  Theosophical  Society;  and  into  that  River  of  Ages 
lives  which  have  passed  onward  throw  their  energy  from 


286  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

the  Other  worlds,  so  that  they  are  working  in  the  same 
Movement  and  strenthening  the  same  current,  and  are 
not  apart  from  us,  but  with  us  all  the  time. 

And  then  there  are  some  others  to  whose  return 
amongst  us  we  have  the  right  to  look  forward.  One 
whom  I  may  remind  you  of,  who  has  not  passed  through 
death's  gateway,  although  out  of  sight  for  so  long,  is  that 
faithful  chela  of  H.  P.  Blavatsky — Damodar — who  left 
India  after  the  great  Coulomb  struggle,  went  up  into  the 
Himalayan  region,  and  found  his  way  to  his  Master's 
home  near  far-off  Shigatze.  He  has  been  living  and 
working  there  ever  since,  and  is  now  a  man  of  middle 
age,  but  his  return  ere  very  long  we  may  without  fear 
look  forward  to.  He  will  come  back  to  us  with  all  the 
gained  knowledge  that  he  has  won  during  these  many 
years'  training  in  the  presence  of  the  Teachers  Them- 
selves ;  he  has  already  shown  himself  in  India,  not  phys- 
ically, but  preparing  to  come  back  when  the  Movement 
is  ready  for  his  work,  and  the  getting  ready  of  it  is  the 
work  which  we  have  to  do  in  the  few  years  in  front.  For 
ere  many  years  have  gone  we  may  look  for  his  coming 
as  a  leader  and  teacher  amongst  us. 

And  of  those  who  passed  through  death's  gateway 
some  have  already  come  back,  H.  P.  Blavatsky  amongst 
them ;  so  that  in  the  years  that  come  many  of  you  will 
see  that  strong  life  again  manifested  amongst  us  to  take 
share  in  the  working  of  the  Society,  for  which  he  is 
working  now  as  ever  before.  Remember  how  a  Master 
said  of  him:  "The  brother  whom  you  know  as  H.  P. 
Blavatsky,  but  we — otherwise."  One  who  was  spoken 
of  in  such  words  by  the  Master  M.  does  not  leave  the 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  IQOQ  287 

work  to  which  he  has  put  his  hand  because  the  worn-out 
body  was  thrown  aside  for  the  time — the  brother  whom 
we  know  as  H.  P.  Blavatsky,  but  They  otherwise,  the 
great  and  strong  disciple  will  again  come  amongst  us  to 
work  more  powerfully  than  in  the  woman's  body  that 
last  time  he  wore.  And  others,  too,  who  worked  with 
him  in  the  earlier  days — Subba  Rao,  whose  name  many 
yet  know ;  he  is  now  a  lad  of  nearly  fifteen,  in  the  Indian 
body  once  more,  bom  in  fact  in  the  same  family  (using 
the  word  "family"  in  the  wider  Indian  sense),  a  lad  of 
fifteen,  very  soon  to  be  ready  again  to  take  up  his  work. 

And  there  are  others,  less  well  known,  who  have  been 
reborn,  and  who  are  preparing  to  take  part  in  the  great 
forward  movement  which  is  so  soon  to  begin.  But 
before  that  work  could  begin  it  was  necessary  to  have 
the  shaking  through  which  we  have  been  passing  during 
the  last  three  years.  I  have  told  you  often  that  from 
time  to  time  these  shakings  recur,  and  are  necessary  be- 
fore a  great  time  of  onward  progress.  Few  of  you 
probably  will  remember  the  progress  that  was  made 
after  the  Coulomb  trouble,  but  many  of  you  will  remem- 
ber the  spring  forward  which  the  Society  took  after 
the  American  secession.  History  repeats  itself  in  small 
cycles  as  well  as  in  large  ones,  and  before  the  great 
forward  movement  could  take  place  it  was  necessary 
that  the  shaking  should  occur  once  more,  to  shake  out 
for  the  moment  those  who  were  not  ready  to  go  forward. 

What  is  the  great  difficulty  before  the  world  ?  When 
those  who  know  more  and  are  able  to  teach  are  to  come 
forward  and  live  among  the  men  and  women  of  the  time, 
and  bring  to  them  the  treasures  they  have  harvested  of 


288  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

the  Wisdom  of  the  ancient  days,  the  one  thing  that 
stands  in  the  way  of  their  reception  is  the  spirit  which 
is  not  able  to  recognise  greatness  when  it  sees  it,  but 
meets  it  with  suspicion,  doubt,  slander,  calumny;  which 
ever  supplies  evil  motives  where  there  is  no  understand- 
ing of  the  reasons  for  action,  and  so  paralyses  those  who 
know,  and  builds  up  barriers  which  even  they  cannot 
overstep.  You  saw  it  in  the  life  of  H.  P.  Blavatsky.  Look 
back  to  that  life  of  hers;  see  how  her  efforts,  her  en- 
deavours to  teach  and  spread  the  Wisdom,  the  message 
with  which  she  was  charged,  were  everywhere  frus- 
trated. And  that  has  been  so  now  for  very  many  cen- 
turies. When  the  greatest  of  all  Teachers  came,  that 
mighty  Teacher  whom  in  the  East  we  call  the  Bodhi- 
sattva,  whom  in  the  West  we  call  the  Christ,  when  He 
came — mightiest  of  spiritual  Teachers,  the  very  spirit  of 
Wisdom  and  love  incarnate — He  could  not  live  three 
years  in  this  world  ere  He  became  so  insupportable  to  the 
people  of  His  day  that  they  slew  Him,  while  His  love  for 
the  Father  was  denounced  as  blasphemy,  His  teaching  de. 
nounced  as  coming  from  the  devil.  And  that  same  spirit 
has  been  seen  ever  since.  The  great  teachers  have  ever 
been  met  with  the  same  spirit,  and  we  have  to  change  it. 
The  chief  mission  of  the  Society  at  the  moment  is  to  pre- 
pare the  way  of  the  Lord,  and  the  only  preparation  that 
can  be  made  is  to  substitute  reverence  for  greatness  in- 
stead of  suspicion  and  hatred.  And  because  that  is  the 
immediate  work  which  lies  before  us,  it  was  necessary  to 
shake  out  of  the  Society  those  whose  spirit  was  rather 
suspicion  of  greatness  than  acceptance  of  it  when  seen. 
For  the  immediate  work  is  the  preparing  of  the  world 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I909  289 

for  the  coming  of  greater  Ones,  in  order  that  the  new  im- 
pulse may  be  g^ven  when  the  new  sub-race  and  Root 
Race  are  to  be  born. 

That  is  the  immediate  work,  the  preparation  for  the 
coming  of  some  of  those  whom  I  have  been  mentioning 
— Damodar,  Subba  Rao,  H.  P.  Blavatsky — not,  remem- 
ber, with  flourish  of  trumpets,  or  with  anyone  declaring 
"this  is  so-and-so"  and  "this  is  someone  else,"  with  the 
exception,  perhaps,  of  the  first  named  (Damodar),  who 
went  as  a  boy  to  his  Master,  and  is  now  middle-aged, 
but  will  be  recognised  by  old  Indian  friends.  But  others 
will  be  coming  in  new  bodies,  unknown,  with  no  proof 
of  who  they  are.  They  will  have  to  make  their  way, 
they  will  have  to  prove  their  apostolate,  and  probably 
their  views  of  things  will  be  very  different  from  the 
views  of  many  of  those  in  the  Theosophical  Society.  In- 
evitably so;  for  people  whose  eyes  are  opened  to  more 
than  one  world  cannot  see  things,  as  those  see  them 
whose  eyes  are  bHnd  save  to  one;  those  who  see  the 
wider  horizon  will  have  different  thoughts  from  those 
who  are  cabined  in  by  the  life  and  conventions  of  their 
day.  And  that  is  why  the  great  Ones  are  always  misun- 
derstood, for  They  must  be  other  than  those  to  whom 
They  come,  else  how  could  They  teach?  And  that  is 
where  your  General  Secretary  spoke  very  truly  in  saying 
that  the  mind  often  misleads,  and  the  things  we  "think" 
cover  over  the  things  we  "know."  Now  the  things  you 
know,  you  know  by  the  light  of  the  Spirit  which  is  within 
you ;  by  that  intuition  which  is  the  voice  of  the  pure,  not 
the  impure  reason,  speaking  above  the  mind  and  through 
the  mind,  but  very  often  in  contradiction  to  the  mind. 

19 


290  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

And  in  order  to  hear  that  voice  of  intuition,  so  far  as  I 
know,  there  is  only  one  way,  that  when  once  you  see  the 
Light  shine  out  through  any  human  being,  you  hold  to 
that  human  being,  no  matter  what  the  mind  may  say. 
That  is  what  spells  success,  and  that  was  pre-eminently 
the  case  with  H.  P.  Blavatsky,  for  anyone  more  confus- 
ing to  the  ordinary  mind  you  could  not  possibly  come 
across — awkward,  athwart  one's  conventions  in  every 
way ;  in  speech,  manner,  actions,  the  very  reverse  of  all 
that  you  would  expect.  When  I  first  met  her  and  saw  in 
her  the  power  of  the  Master,  from  that  day  to  this  I  have 
never  challenged  and  never  doubted  her.  And  very,  very 
largely  because  of  that  have  come  the  knowledge  and 
power  that  I  have  won  not  by  reasoning  and  arguing — 
"Was*  she  right  or  wrong?"  "Would  it  not  have  been 
better  it  she  had  been  different  from  what  she  was?" — 
but  having  once  seen  in  her  the  Light  of  Truth,  refusing 
to  see  anything  else  exr^pt  the  Messenger  of  the  Master. 
And  that  is  what  you  need  in  the  coming  days,  that  is 
what  some  of  you  have  been  winning  through  the  storms 
of  the  last  three  years — to  realise  that  when  once  you 
have  known  a  teacher  to  be  a  teacher  you  shall  cling  to 
that  knowledge,  no  matter  what  clouds  for  a  time  sur- 
round, no  matter  what  storms  for  a  time  may  hide ;  for 
that  means  intuition,  which  is  above  the  concrete  mind ; 
it  means  the  testimony  of  the  God  within  you  to  the 
God  without  you,  and  that  cannot  lie.  And  we  have  to 
spread  that  through  the  whole  Society  in  order  to  make 
the  way  possible  for  those  who  will  be  coming  amongst 
us  during  the  next  few  years,  and  the  greater  Ones  who 
will  come  later  if  we  can  welcome  the  Messengers,  but 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I9O9  29 1 

not  Otherwise.  Our  years  of  mortal  life  are  not  those  by 
which  time  is  reckoned  in  the  great  cycles  of  the  occult 
world.  It  is  true  that  we  say :  "Probably  between  thirty 
and  forty  years  hence  a  great  Teacher  will  come  back, 
the  greatest  Teacher,  the  Teacher  of  Gods  and  men." 
But  a  date  like  that,  which  is  counted  by  the  revolutions 
of  the  world,  is  always  a  doubtful  thing  from  the  occult 
standpoint ;  for  time  there  is  measured  by  consciousness, 
and  not  by  the  turning  of  the  sup.  Efforts  may  shorten 
or  failure  may  retard  the  date,  and  hence  it  is  always 
rather  vaguely  put;  and  if,  when  these  less  great  ones 
came  we  were  not  able  to  receive  them,  if  we  are  repelled 
by  the  superficial  appearance  and  have  not  the  intuition 
to  recognise  the  Messengers,  that  will  inevitably  delay  the 
coming  of  the  greater  Ones. 

At  different  times  different  virtues  are  wanted.  To 
know  the  virtue  of  the  time  and  to  develop  it,  that  is 
wisdom.  At  one  time  courage  is  the  great  thing  wanted ; 
at  another  time  recognition  of  spititual  greatness,  and 
the  power  to  hold  to  it,  and  that  is  the  virtue  wanted 
now.  Not  in  order  that  you  and  I  as  individuals  may  take 
part  in  this  great  work,  but  in  order  that  the  world  may 
be  prepared,  that  the  way  of  the  Lord  may  be  made 
straight,  so  that  He  may  come.  For  He  cannot  come  to 
be  a  curse  to  the  world  instead  of  a  blessing,  as  He  would 
be  if  the  world  were  wholly  unprepared.  And  so  greater 
and  greater  Ones  will  be  coming  in  order  that  the  great- 
est of  all  may  be  welcomed  when  He  appears  amongst  us. 

Some  of  you  think,  but  you  think  mistakenly,  that 
you  would  recognise,  say,  a  Master,  or  even  a  Christ,  if 


292  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

He  appeared.  Are  you  so  sure  ?  They  never  have  been 
recognised  by  the  people  of  their  time  save  by  a  small 
minority,  and  why  should  we  be  different?  The  Christ 
was  not  recognised  when  He  came  last ;  His  Messengers 
have  not  been  recognised  since,  save  by  a  minority. 
They  are  so  different  from  the  people  of  their  time  that 
there  is  much  to  get  over  before  you  can  recognise  them. 
And  it  is  a  good  practice  sometimes  to  throw  yourself 
back  to  those  days  in  Judea  when  the  Son  of  Man  trod 
the  ea/th.  Realise  what  He  would  have  seemed  to  you 
then,  not  what  he  seems  to  you  now  through  the  vista 
of  centuries  of  the  adoration  of  millions  of  men.  What 
would  he  have  seemed  as  the  vagabond  travelling  about 
on  foot,  with  a  number  of  half -educated  people  round 
Him,  disturbing  the  peace  of  society,  antagonistic  to  the 
respectabilities  of  His*  day,  looked  down  upon  by  the 
aristocracy  of  the  time  ?  See  Him  as  they  saw  Him,  and 
ask  yourself:  "Should  I  have  recognised  the  Christ?" 
And  that  is  where  the  test  has  been,  right  through  these 
last  three  years,  and  where  it  will  be  as  the  people  I 
have  been  speaking  of  gradually  come  amongst  us  again. 
If  you  would  recognise  them  when  they  come,  try  to 
cultivate  the  power  which  answers  to  greatness  with- 
out, by  cultivating  greatness  within,  remembering  that 
spiritual  recognition  is  the  recognition  of  all  those  who 
are  kindred  to-  yourself.  H  you  have  the  virtue?  in  you 
of  the  spiritual  man  you  will  know  spiritual  men  when 
you  meet  them ;  but  if  you  cannot  answer  to  Him,  then 
He  will  pass  you  by  unknown,  and  probably  disliked. 

Now  our  work  is  clear  before  us :  to  try  to  change  the 
public  opinion  of  the  world  into  the  attitude  which  is 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I909  293 

sometimes  called  disparagingly  hero-worship,  which  is 
essentially  the  thing  we  need  at  the  present  time — the 
power  to  know  the  hero  when  we  see  him.  "No  man  is 
a  hero,"  it  is  said,  "to  his  valet."  And  people  think  that 
that  means  that  he  is  small  when  seen  close  by.  Not  so ; 
hut  that  the  small  soul  which  is  typified  by  the  word 
"valet"  cannot  appreciate  the  greatness  of  the  hero  near 
whom  he  stands.  The  servant  soul  does  not  recognise 
the  greatness  of  the  hero,  and  therefore  the  hero  is  no 
hero  to  him.  Only  the  heroic  recognises  the  hero;  and 
if  you  can  develop  that  in  yourself  which  is  like  a 
Master,  then,  and  then  alone,  will  you  know  a  Master 
when  He  comes.  And  the  best  way  to  cultivate  it  is  for 
a  tin>e  to  let  go  that  spirit  of  criticism  which  makes  peo- 
ple so  superior  to  those  around  them.  Cultivate  the  fac- 
ulty of  admiration  rather  than  that  of  criticism.  Try, 
when  you  rrneet  a  person  or  when  you  read  a  book,  to  see 
the  good  things  in  the  book  or  person,  and  not  the  faults. 
And  the  faults  in  the  people  around  you,  these  are  no 
business  of  yours;  and  if  you  would  once  understand 
that  and  live  it,  your  path  would  be  so  much  easier.  So 
nrany  of  you  are  so  anxious  to  get  other  people  out  of 
thdr  faults  that  you  really  have  no  time  to  look  after 
your  own  steps  and  put  them  in  the  right  way.  The 
faults  of  the  other  people  will  work  out  through  karma, 
and  they  are  not  your  business — a  hard  but  true  lesson. 
Of  course,  if  you  are  a  master  or  a  teacher,  and  have 
others  in  your  charge,  their  faults  are  then  yours  to 
correct ;  but  you  are  not,  generally  speaking,  masters  or 
guardians,  and  you  have  no  responsibility  to  criticise  or 
put  others  right.  Take  out  of  your  friends  the  value  of 


294  THE   CHANGING  WORLD 

the  good  and  let  the  faults  go.  You  need  not  say  they 
are  virtues,  you  need  not  pretend  that  you  think  wrong 
right;  but  you  can  say:  "That  part  of  the  man  is  not 
my  business;  let  me  help  the  God  in  him  to  manifest, 
and  let  the  other  side  in  him  wear  out  in  its  own  way." 
If  you  can  do  that  you  will  be  more  useful  now  than 
in  any  other  spirit,  and  it  is  that  lesson  I  would  ask 
you  to  take  with  you.  Think  of  H.  P.  Blavatsky  and  of 
those  who  have  passed  away  in  the  spirit  that  they 
helped  us,  and  not  in  the  spirit  that  would  blind  our  eyes 
to  their  value,  and  then  carry  that  spirit  on  to  the  peo- 
ple around  you,  and  in  every  one  round  you  try  to  see 
the  God,  and  let  the  rest  go.  Admire  the  admirable,  and 
leave  aside  the  regrettable ;  for  in  doing  it  you  will  help 
them  more  to  conquer  their  faults  than  by  criticism. 

Seeing  the  God  in  them,  and  loving  and  trusting,  that 
will  help  them  to  grow  out  of  the  limitations,  of  the 
blunders  and  errors  that  are  hindering  the  divine  mani- 
festation. And  remember  that  is  what  is  wanted  now, 
not  for  yourselves  only  but  for  every  one  around  you,  so 
that  when  the  Teachers  come  They  may  be  able  to  re- 
main in  the  world  amongst  us.  They  dare  not  come  yet, 
because  even  in  the  Theosophical  Society  They  would 
not  be  welcomed.  A  Master  who  came  amongst  you  now 
would  not  for  the  most  part  be  very  much  liked  by  you ; 
His  ways,  His  views.  His  thoughts  would  be  so  different, 
He  would  raise  suspicion  and  dislike.  We  saw  it  in  the 
earlier  days  when  They  came  out  more,  and  were  met  by 
judgment  and  criticism,  until  one  of  Them  said,  in  the 
fashion  in  which  They  look  at  ignorant  criticism:  "The 
standard  of  the  Adept  is  not  kept  at  Simla,  it  is  kept  at 


ADDRESS  ON  WHITE  LOTUS  DAY  I9O9  295 

Shamballah  and  I  try  to  accommodate  myself  to  that." 
There  is  a  great  lesson  in  that  for  all  of  us.  The  stand- 
ard of  those  who  are  passing  onward  into  the  higher  life 
is  not  the  standard  of  the  judgment  of  the  people  around 
them,  but  the  standard  that  the  Masters  hold  up  before 
them,  to  which  they  are  ever  trying  to  conform.  Think 
of  that  in  your  attitude  to  the  people  around  you ;  re- 
member that  on  you,  and  on  people  like  you  everywhere, 
depends  the  success  or  the  failure  of  the  next  great  mani- 
festation of  the  divine  life  on  the  earth ;  that  this  Theo- 
sophical  Society,  spread  everywhere  over  the  world,  is  lit- 
erally the  John  the  Baptist  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
coming  of  the  Christ ;  to  fill  that  part  is  your  work  and 
duty — and  need  I  say,  your  privilege,  your  highest 
honour  ? 

To  leave  the  Society  now,  in  the  days  which  are  just 
dawning,  surely  it  is  bad  karma  enough,  and  you  should 
only  feel  the  tenderest  thoughts  of  pity  towards  any  who 
go  out  from  us  in  the  days  when  to  belong  to  the  move- 
ment is  the  greatest  crown  that  can  be  given  for  any  no- 
bility of  past  life  that  any  one  of  us  may  have  had.  No 
words  of  harshness  or  of  condemnation,  nothing  that  will 
make  it  harder  for  them  to  return,  but  everywhere  gen- 
tlest and  most  tolerant  speech — this  is  our  duty  to  our  im- 
mediate brethren ;  and  to  the  world  what  I  have  told  you. 

And  so  from  this  White  Lotus  Day  look  forward  more 
than  backward,  rather  to  the  work  that  is  coming  than 
to  the  difficulties  that  are  now  well-nigh  over.  Re- 
member, for  your  strengthening,  that  the  only  great 
shaking  has  been  here  and  in  America,  nowhere  else. 
You  can  count  on  your  fingers  practically  in  other  coun- 


296  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

tries  those  who  have  been  shaken  out.  You  have  had  the 
struggle  and  have  come  out  well.  It  is  practically  over 
now.  There  may  be  some  slight  effort  made  now  to  make 
things  difficult,  but  what  does  it  matter,  with  such  hopes 
before  us,  with  such  strength  behind  us,  with  such  knowl- 
edge within  us  ?  Why  should  we  allow  ourselves  to  be 
ruffled  by  anything  that  can  take  place  in  this  outer 
world  of  men  ?  We  have  been  through  many  such  strug- 
gles in  past  lives,  shall  have  to  go  through  many  greater 
ones  in  lives  to  come ;  why  make  too  much  of  present-day 
trouble?  Those  whose  lives  are  in  eternity  need  not  be 
troubled  with  even  what  seem  to  be  great  difficulties  to 
the  men  and  women  of  the  world.  And  so  to  you  I  would 
say :  Gather  together  on  the  Day  of  Memory,  but  turn  it 
now  more  into  day  of  looking  forward.  Let  the  past  go  ; 
it  has  done  its  work,  it  is  over.  Turn  your  eyes  to  the 
work  that  is  opening  before  us,  more  splendid  than  any 
work  of  the  past.  And  remember  it  is  not  the  Messen- 
gers who  may  stand  in  front  who  are  the  strength  of  the 
Society,  but  that  the  life  comes  from  the  Masters  and  the 
strength  from  the  Lodge  Knowing  that,  you  need  not 
mind  even  if  those  of  us  who  are  well  known  in  the 
world  make  mistakes,  are  attacked,  or  evil  spoken  of. 
Never  yet  a  Messenger  of  the  Lodge  that  went  through 
life  without  being  evil  spoken  of,  and  you  need  not 
grudge  us  the  sign  of  our  apostolate ;  for  such  has  ever 
been  the  sign  of  the  Messengers  through  all  ages. 
Rather  rejoice  with  us  that  the  stress  for  the  time  is 
over,  and  the  days  of  going  forward  are  upon  us ;  do  not 
let  the  remnant  of  the  trouble  shake  any  one  of  you, 
but  know  that  the  Masters  are  with  us,  and  where  they 
are  no  failure  can  come. 


Lecture  VI 
The   Nature   of  the   Christ^ 

It  is  with  pleasure  that  I  find  myself  amongst  you,  as  I 
have  often  found  myself  before.  I  think  my  membership 
in  the  Theosophical  Society  is  of  about  the  same  length 
as  the  life  of  your  Society.  We  both  began  our  careers, 
so  to  speak,  about  the  same  time,  in  the  same  year. 

The  subject  that  I  have  taken  is  in  many  ways  a 
difficult  one,  and  one  that  may  very  naturally  arouse 
differences  of  feeling.  It  is,  however,  one  which  is  be- 
ing discussed  very  much  in  the  Christian  Church  at  the 
present  time,  and  it  is  for  that  reason  that  it  seemed  to 
me  that  it  might  be  useful  if  we  could  exchange  thoughts 
on  a  subject  of  enormous  importance.  I  also  want  to 
make  certain  suggestions  which  I  think  may  be  wel- 
comed in  regard  to  an  idea  to  be  found  in  the  East,  which 
perhaps  is  not  quite  familiar  over  here ;  and  which  pre- 
sages a  unity  greater  and  profounder  than  could  be 
reached,  I  think,  in  any  other  way.  Naturally,  I  am 
putting  only  my  own  views,  and  they  commit  no  one  but 
myself.  These  questions  that  touch  alike  the  intellect 
and  the  heart  must  always  be  treated  reverently  by  those 

1  Delivered  to  the  Christo-Theosophical  Society,  at  the  invitation  of 
Sir  Richard  and  Lady  Stapley,  Tuesday,  May  25,  1909. 

297 


298  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

who  realise  the  Brotherhood  of  man,  and  they  are  also 
ideas  of  the  profoundest  importance  with  regard  to  the 
future  of  religion  and  of  civilisation. 

In  the  Hibbert  Journal  of  January  last  the  subject  that 
I  have  taken  for  our  talk  was  to  some  extent  discussed 
from  the  standpoint  of  one  who  I  suppose  would  be 
called  an  extremely  liberal  Christian,  The  writer  is  the 
Rev.  R.  Roberts,  Congregational  minister,  of  Bradford ; 
his  name  is  still  in  the  Congregational  Year-book,  but  I 
heard  that  he  was  not  at  present  ministering  in  any 
pulpit.  I  take  his  view  as  my  starting-point  this  after- 
noon. The  title  of  his  article  is  at  first  sight  a  little 
startling  from  the  ordinary  Christian  standpoint,  "J^sus 
or  Christ  ?"  and  he  distinctly  puts  forward  the  view,  and 
argues  for  it  with  a  good  deal  of  ability,  that  we  have  to 
do  at  once  with  one  supposed  to  be  a  historical  person, 
and  then  apparently  with  what  he  could  only  regard  as 
a  Mystical  Ideal. 

So  far  as  I  can  gather  from  what  he  says,  he  does  not 
regard  the  Christ  as  historical,  though  he  does  not  very 
clearly  draw  the  line  as  to  how  he  would  separate, 
historically,  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels  from  that  Ideal 
which  he  names  "The  Christ."  He  says  that  he  and 
many  other  people  find  themselves  beset  by  certain 
difficulties:  "Are  the  claims  to  be  presently  set  forth 
made  on  behalf  of  a  spiritual  Tdeal'  to  which  we  may 
provisionally  apply  the  word  'Christ,*  or  are  they  predi- 
cated of  Jesus  ?"  Then  he  goes  on  to  say  that  insistence 
on  limitations  of  knowledge,  restrictions  of  outlook, 
evasions  of  issues,  and  disillusionments  of  experience, 
true  enough  of  a  historic  Jesus,  may  not  be  wholly 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST  299 

relevant  to  a  spiritual  "Qirist  Ideal,"  expanding  and 
enriching  through  the  ages  into  "the  Christ  that  is  to 
be."  Then  he  says  it  would  be  still  less  applicable  to 
one  who  is  regarded  as  the  "fulness  of  Godhead,"  "Very 
God  of  very  God."  That,  practically,  is  his  thesis,  and 
he  tries  to  show  in  this  article  that  very  many  difficulties 
might  be  avoided  if  Christians  were  willing  to  recognise 
a  Christ  Ideal  side  by  side  with  the  historical  Jesus.  In 
that  way  they  might  evade  some  of  the  difficulties  which 
are  pressed  against  the  conception  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ 
by  large  numbers  of  people  who  find  their  faith  chal- 
lenged and  themselves  in  difficulties  by  these  objections 
which  are  put  to  them  both  inside  and  outside  the 
Church.  He  quotes  Dr.  Fairbairn,  writing  on  Christ  in 
Modern  Theology.  "If  He  knows  as  God  while  He 
speaks  as  man,  then  His  speech  is  not  true  to  His  knowl- 
edge, and  within  Him  a  bewildering  struggle  must  ever 
proceed  to  speak  as  He  seems  and  not  as  He  is.  If  He 
had  such  knowledge,  how  could  He  remain  silent  as  He 
faced  human  ignorance,  and  saw  reason  wearied  with  the 
burden  of  all  its  unintelligible  mysteries?  If  men  could 
believe  that  once  there  lived  on  this  earth  One  who 
had  all  the  knowledge  of  God,  yet  declined  to  turn  any 
part  of  it  into  science  for  man,  would  they  not  feel  their 
faith  in  His  goodness  taxed  beyond  endurance?"  That 
view  (which  appears  to  be  adopted  by  Mr.  Roberts)  does 
not  seem  to  me  necessarily  at  all  a  sound  one,  and  it  is 
by  no  means  certain  that  a  man  speaking  in  a  particular 
age  to  people  among  whom  great  limitations  of  knowl- 
edge existed,  and  with  a  particular  object  before  Him — 
not  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  science,  but  to  deepen  spir- 


30O  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

ituality  and  lay  a  strong  foundation  of  morals — ^that  such 
a  Teacher,  however  highly  illuminated,  however  much 
speaking  as  the  very  Spirit  of  God,  would  say  all  that  He 
knew  with  regard  to  external  facts  and  external  phenom- 
ena, with  the  certainty  of  making  very  difficult  the  re- 
ception of  His  message  on  points  enormously  important 
— on  points,  in  fact,  of  vital  and  essential  need  for  the 
higher  spiritual  progress  of  man.  Hence  it  does  not 
appear  to  me  that  Dr.  Fairbairn's  issue  is  at  all  well 
taken.  Every  great  teacher — not  for  the  moment  con- 
sidering the  special  divinity  of  Christ  or  Jesus — who  is 
speaking  to  people  less  instructed  than  himself  is  under 
a  similar  difficulty.  If  on  matters  of  ordinary  scientific 
knowledge  he  is  illuminated  where  they  are  not,  the  very 
fact  that  he  presses  that  upon  them  would  bewilder  and 
confuse.  You  cannot  enable  the  human  intellect  to 
evolve  at  what  might  be  called  a  supernatural  rate.  It  is 
capable  of  growth,  and  often  of  rapid  growth,  but  if  you 
try  to  force  it  beyond  the  rapid  natural  growth,  you  will 
only  perplex,  bewilder,  and  confuse ;  and  if  your  aim  is 
not,  broadly,  to  increase  scientific  knowledge,  which  man 
will  inevitably  find  out  for  himself  after  a  time,  but  to 
help  him  to  the  things  which  need  spiritual  illumination 
in  order  that  he  may  receive  them,  then  such  a  difficulty 
as  is  put  here  as  to  the  inner  bewilderment  which  would 
be  felt  by  the  speaker  to  speak  as  he  seems,  and  not  as 
he  is,  would  not  be  bewilderment  at  all,  but  a  quite 
deliberate  limitation  of  what  he  said,  with  a  view  to  the 
effectiveness  of  his  work,  and  that  which  he  desired  to 
give  to  the  people  of  his  time.  That  is  true  necessarily 
of  every  great  prophet,  of  every  highly  inspired  man; 


THE   NATURE  OF  THE   CHRIST  3OI 

and  the  greatness  of  the  inspiration  would  chiefly  be 
shown,  not  in  the  amount  of  physical  knowledge  which 
he  might  give,  but  rather  in  his  avoidance  of  certain 
difficulties  which,  when  the  race  grew  more  learned, 
might  come  in  their  way  and  complete  their  ideas.  That 
is  to  say,  he  would  evade  the  scientific  difficulty  as  far  as 
he  possibly  could,  and  would  do  it  deliberately,  knowing 
that  that  was  not  his  particular  work,  and  that  he  could 
not  do  his  own  work  if  he  turned  aside  in  this  direction. 
So  that,  as  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned,  looking  on 
this  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Theosophist  and  Occult- 
ist, these  difficulties  to  me  do  not  exist.  I  realise  that 
they  must  always  be  found  where  one  who  is  superhuman 
— I  object  to  the  word  supernatural — comes  in  any  age  of 
the  world's  history  in  order  to  teach  a  new  conception  of 
religion,  and  in  order  to  adapt  what  he  is  giving  to  the 
civilisation  which  he  intends  to  influence. 

It  appears  to  me  that  it  is  a  perfectly  rational  and 
necessary  thing  that  the  growth  of  knowledge  from  the 
ordinary  standpoint  should  be  left  to  work  its  way  out 
along  the  lines  of  intellectual  development;  anything 
less  than  that  will  check  intellectual  growth  inevitably, 
for  intellectual  growth  can  only  come  about  by  the  freest 
of  thought,  the  freest  of  discussion,  the  most  absolute 
liberty  to  challenge  everything  and  to  controvert  any- 
thing which  appears  to  be  illogical.  The  condition  of  in- 
tellectual growth  is  that  of  complete  freedom,  and  any 
sort  of  limitation  which  is  put  upon  it  by  the  knowledge 
of  a  great  teacher  will  only  check  that  intellectual  evolu- 
tion which  is  essential  for  the  future  growth  of  man. 
Many  similar  difficulties,  of  course,  are  made  with  regard 


302  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

to  all  inspired  Scriptures,  and  for  that  reason  it  seems  to 
me  that  it  is  well  that  we  distinguish  definitely  between 
the  spiritual  work  of  the  spiritual  teacher  and  the  scien- 
tific investigation  of  the  scientific  student ;  that  it  should 
be  realised  that  these  two  departments  of  human  activity 
work  under  different  laws  to  a  very  great  extent,  and  that 
that  which  is  spiritually  known  cannot  always  be  justi- 
fied to  the  intellect  until  that  intellect  becomes  spiritually 
enlightened — that  is,  that  you  have  to  deal  in  man  with  a 
being  who  is  fundamentally  a  spiritual  being,  in  whom 
the  divine  Spirit  becomes  incarnate,  embodied,  but  in 
whom  that  divine  Spirit  is  going  to  unfold  along  three 
great  lines  of  unfoldment  which  we  find  in  all  human 
consciousness,  which  we  recognise  as  in  the  divine  nature 
itself.  It  has  to  unfold  to  an  ordered  Activity  which 
should  be  truly  in  harmony  with  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  are  the  expression  of  the  divine  nature  in  this 
manifested  form.  It  has  to  unfold  along  the  Intellectual 
line,  and  that  unfoldment  must  be  left  utterly  unfettered. 
It  has  also  to  evolve  along  that  line  which  in  its  lowest 
stages  is  emotion,  in  its  higher  stages  is  religion;  and 
that  spiritual  unfolding,  the  highest  characteristic  of 
Spirit  showing  itself  out  as  Will,  has  to  be  developed 
from  above  more  than  from  below,  to  come  downward 
by  illumination  more  than  to  climb  upward  by  reasoning. 
Unless  we  can  understand  this  complicated  nature  of 
man  in  whom  divinity  is  gradually  unfolding  and  master- 
ing matter  at  every  stage  of  its  unfolding,  mastering, 
purifying  it,  ultimately  spiritualising  it ;  in  all  its  earlier 
stages  limited  by  the  matter  that  it  has  yet  failed  to 
master,  gradually  making  it  plastic  and  ductile,  and  then 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE   CHRIST  3O3 

in  its  higher  stages  having  utterly  subdued  it  to  its  own 
purposes — unless  we  can  understand  that  that  is  a  rough 
outline  of  human  evolution,  we  shall  constantly  find  our- 
selves in  difficulties  between  the  intellectual  growth  and 
the  spiritual  unfolding.  Hence  whenever  a  man  comes 
to  earth  in  whom  divinity  is  far  more  manifestly  un- 
folded than  in  his  fellow-men,  he  can  only  shed  down 
upon  them  illumination  from  the  spiritual  region,  stimu- 
late their  aims,  but  not  control  their  intellect.  If  that  be 
realised,  then  the  whole  of  these  difficulties,  which  are 
being  made  at  the  present  time  about  the  obvious  limita- 
tions outwardly  of  the  knowledge  of  the  supreme  Qiris- 
tian  Teacher,  will  entirely  fall  out  of  court,  and  you 
will  see  that  He  was  speaking  to  the  people  of  His  day 
in  the  way  that  He  could  best  affect  them  in  order  to 
help  forward  their  evolution  from  the  standpoint  where 
they  were,  and  was  not  the  least  intent  on  showing  out 
His  enormous  knowledge,  which  would  only  have 
crushed  rather  than  assisted. 

Suppose  for  the  moment  you  can  take  that  way  of 
looking  at  human  evolution — and  it  seems  to  me  the  most 
rational  way  of  looking  at  it — then  we  come  to  deal  with 
this  special  manifestation  of  the  Teacher  who  was  the 
Founder  of  Christianity,  a  Hebrew  speaking  to  He- 
brews, and  having  to  reconcile  the  speaking  to  the  peo- 
ple of  His  day  with  the  speaking  to  people  of  generations 
after  generations,  through  centuries  and  perhaps  mil- 
lennia to  come,  then  we  should  be  perfectly  able  to 
realise  that  we  are  here  face  to  face  with  one  of  those 
supreme  divine  manifestations,  and  that  in  studying 
it  we  must  be  ready  to  separate  between  the  Teacher  of 


304  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

religion  and  the  man  speaking  to  the  men  of  His  day,  and 
accepting  their  limitations  in  order  that  He  might  reach 
them  effectively.  I  want  to  carry  you  very  much  further 
than  that  in  what  I  say;  all  that  might  very  well  be 
accepted  by  any  rational  and  intelligent  Christian,  espe- 
cially if  he  finds  himself  able  to  realise  that  what  is  said 
of  the  divinity  of  Jesus  is  true  at  a  very  much  lower 
level  of  all  His  brethren,  that  all  men  are  fundamentally 
and  essentially  divine;  that  that  which  was  said  by  the 
great  teacher  S.  Paul :  "Know  ye  not  that  your  body  is 
the  temple  of  God,  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth 
in  you  ?"  and  that  which  was  answered  by  Jesus  Himself, 
when  he  was  challenged  for  calling  Himself  the  Son  of 
God:  "Is  it  not  written  in  your  law,  I  said.  Ye  are 
Gods,  and  ye  are  all  the  children  of  the  Highest?"  is 
literally  true.  If  you  realise  all  that  is  implied  in  that 
statement,  that  He  is  the  first  among  many  brethren,  you 
will  see  that  every  Son  of  Man  is  potentially,  and  will 
hereafter  be  actually,  a  Son  of  God,  meaning  by  that  that 
Deity  will  unfold  within  him,  and  that  a  manifestly  divine 
humanity  is  the  natural  goal  of  evolution. 

One  realises,  in  looking  at  an  article  like  this,  that  by 
the  mystic  Christ — that  is  what  the  writer  means — he 
means  that  in  the  Epistles  a  somewhat  different  view  is 
taken  from  that  of  the  Gospels,  the  one  dealing  specially 
with  an  historical  person,  the  other  with  an  indwelling 
Spirit.  He  realises  that  when  the  Apostle  Paul  declares 
to  his  converts  that  he  is  travailing  in  birth  for  them 
until  Christ  be  formed  in  them,  when  he  says  in  another 
passage  that  they  are  to  develop  to  the  measure  of  the 
stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ,  he  is  holding  up  before 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST  3O5 

them  a  picture  of  the  birth  in  the  soul  of  this  divine  Spirit 
that  he  spoke  of  as  Christ,  and  the  gradual  unfolding 
of  that  into  the  perfection  of  divine  manhood.  That  is 
perhaps  the  most  inspiring  ideal  that  can  well  be  put 
before  Christian  people,  that  not  only  outside  them  but 
within  them,  not  only  as  an  outer  helper  but  as  an  in- 
dwelling Spirit,  this  idea  of  the  Christ  is  to  be  realised, 
and  that  that  unfolding  of  the  Christ  in  man  is  a  real 
fact  in  religious  consciousness,  making  that  highest  stage 
of  human  evolution  when  the  man  becomes  perfect,  and 
there  only  remains  before  him  the  superhuman  evolution 
after  the  human  is  finished. 

But  I  want  to  put  to  you  rather  a  different  idea  of  this 
relation  between  Jesus  and  Christ.  I  recognise  to  the 
full  the  value  of  that  mystic  ideal,  I  have  not  one  word 
to  say  against  it ;  in  fact  it  is  one  that,  when  I  am  speak- 
ing to  Christians,  I  constantly  proclaim — the  absolute 
necessity  of  that  indwelling  presence.  But  there  is 
another  view  of  this  great  Being  which  may  be  less 
familiar  to  you,  which  is  the  view  taken  by  those  who 
are  sometimes  called  Occultists,  in  a  very  special  sense 
of  the  term.  Let  me  put  it  to  you  quite  baldly  for  the 
moment,  and  then  work  it  out  a  little  more.  The  view 
that  we  take  of  that  great  Teacher  who  came  to  the 
world  some  two  thousand  years  ago  is,  that  the  child 
who  was  born  and  who  grew  up  into  manhood  until  the 
time  of  the  Batpism  was  a  man  of  marvellous  purity,  of 
extraordinary  spiritual  intuition,  but  a  man  that  we 
should  call  a  disciple ;  that  it  was  his  to  train  and  guard 
that  pure  body  in  preparation  for  the  incoming  of  the 
indwelling  Christ,  and  that  in  the  Gospel  story  it  is  the 

20 


306  THF   CHANGING  WORLD 

event  of  the  Baptism  which  marks  the  coming  of  the 
Christ.  Let  me  just  recall  the  words  to  you  for  a  mo- 
ment: "When  Jesus  went  down  into  the  water,  the 
heavens  opened,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  came  down  upon 
Him  like  a  dove,  and  abode  upon  Him,  And  a  voice  was 
heard  from  heaven  saying.  This  is  my  beloved  Son; 
hear  ye  Him.'  "  Now  it  is  clear  that  that  event,  marked 
out  so  distinctly  in  the  Gospel  story,  must  connote  some- 
thing of  enormous  importance.  There  was  no  need,  as 
it  were,  for  Him*  who  was  to  be  the  Teacher  to  be  bap- 
tised, and  to  receive  the  downcoming  Spirit  of  the  Most 
High,  unless  in  that  there  was  hid  some  profound  spir- 
itual truth,  unless  something  was  there  afterward  that 
was  not  there  before ;  and  it  is  then,  from  the  occult  point 
of  view,  that  the  Jesus  became  the  Christ.  But  let  me 
put  it  to  you  even  a  little  more  closely.  Here,  of  course, 
is  where  the  point  of  difference  will  probably  arise  in  the 
minds  of  many  in  regard  to  what  I  am  saying,  for  all 
might  be  willing  to  recognise  that  that  might  imply  a 
great  downflow  of  spiritual  energy,  of  divine  life.  From 
our  standpoint  Jesus  the  Hebrew,  the  individual,  the 
spiritual  man,  stepped  out  of  the  body  that  he  had  been 
dwelling  in  through  all  those  years  and  preparing  for  the 
coming  of  his  Lord,  giving  it  over  as  a  holy  temple  for 
the  incoming  of  the  supreme  Teacher,  so  that  the  body 
became  the  habitation  of  the  supreme  Teacher  for  the 
three  years  of  the  ministry.  Now  that  view,  as  many  of 
you  who  have  studied  Christian  history  will  know,  was 
very  widely  held  in  the  early  Church;  although  it  was 
condemned  later  as  the  Gnostic  heresy,  none  the  less  it 
was  quite  orthodox  until  its  formal  condemnation  within 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST  3O7 

the  Catholic  Church,  until  the  time  that  it  was  expelled. 
You  find  it  in  many  of  the  early  writings  of  the  learned 
Christian  teachers,  you  find  it  warred  against  by  some 
others  of  tlie  Christian  teachers  and  doctors  and  bishops 
of  the  time,  but  none  the  less  it  was  a  view  which  had 
very  wide  prevalence  in  the  early  Church;  it  was  ac- 
cepted by  large  numbers  of  profoundly  learned  men; 
and  although  ultimately  condemned  as  a  heresy  in  the 
forms  in  which  it  was  put,  it  might  none  the  less  not  be 
improbable,  even  from  the  standpoint  of  the  orthodox, 
that  some  truth  was  hidden  in  it  in  the  broad  sense,  even 
if  the  form  in  which  it  was  put  forward  in  the  Church  of 
those  days  was  justly  condemned.  My  own  view  is  that 
they  were  right,  not  in  all  the  details  of  the  way  in 
which  they  put  it,  but  in  the  fundamental  fact.  Let  us 
suppose  for  a  moment  that  they  were  so;  then  the 
question  would  necessarily  arise — ^who  is  the  Christ? 
And  it  is  there  that,  as  I  said,  there  was  one  view  that 
might  be  unfamiliar  to  you  in  the  West,  yet  which,  it 
seems  to  me,  should  be  to  the  Christian  a  view  full  of 
beauty  and  full  of  hope  for  the  future.  There  is  only 
one  Supreme  Teacher  of  mankind.  There  is  a  great 
office  above  all  those  whom  we  Theosophists  speak  of  as 
Masters — a  Master  of  Masters,  so  to  speak — the  one 
Supreme  Teacher.  In  Christendom  you  speak  of  him  by 
the  Greek  name,  a  name  which,  as  you  know,  was  taken 
from  the  Grecian  mysteries,  of  which  a  particular  grade 
of  initiation  bore  the  name  of  the  Christos,  and  the  Adept 
who  reached  that  grade  was  spoken  of  as  the  Christos. 
That  was  the  name  which  was  adopted  in  the  early 
Church,  according  to  the  account  in  the  Acts,  to  designate 


308  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

this  great  Teacher  who  had  come  to  the  world,  and  we 
should  say,  rightly  adopted.  It  is  an  instance  of  spirit- 
ual insight  recognising  a  great  truth. 

But  now,  supposing  I  ask  you  to  go  to  the  people  of 
other  religions  for  a  moment,  the  ancient  religions  that 
we  find  in  the  eastern  world.  Suppose  I  ask  a  member 
of  the  most  ancient  of  those,  the  Hindu  faith :  "Do  you 
recognise  in  your  religion  one  supreme  World-Teacher 
above  all  religions,  and  not  belonging  to  one  exclusively 
— a  universal  Teacher?" — he  would  say,  "of  Gods  and 
men" ;  over  here  you  would  say,  "of  Angels  and  men," 
because  the  word  there,  Deva,  is  equivalent  to  your  word 
Angel.  He  would  at  once  say:  "Why,  yes;  of  course 
we  recognise  one  Supreme  Teacher  at  the  head  of  all 
spiritual  life  and  impulse,  and  we  call  him  (pardon  me  if 
I  use  for  the  moment  their  name)  the  Jagat-Guru — the 
World-Teacher."  Supposing  I  went  to  another  great 
religion  there — the  Buddhist — and  I  asked  a  member  the 
same  question:  "Do  you  recognise  in  your  religion  a 
Supreme  Teacher  ?"  his  answer  would  at  once  be,  "Why, 
of  course  we  do.  There  is  only  one  who  holds  the  place 
of  Teacher  over  all  Gods  and  all  men;  one  Teacher 
only  who  is  the  Teacher  of  the  world.  We  call  Him 
the  Bodhisattva — the  Wisdom-Truth."  No  nobler  name 
could  be  given  to  Him;  He  is  the  Wisdom  and  the 
Truth;  not  the  Buddha,  as  you  may  have  expected  me 
to  say;  He  was  not  the  Teacher.  When  He  reached 
Buddhahood  He  passed  away  from  earth.  It  is  while 
He  is  going  onwards  to  Buddhahood  that  He  is  known 
by  this  name  of  Wisdom-Truth,  or  Boddhisattva.  Dur- 
ing the  whole  of  that  period  of  teaching  He  has  this 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST  3O9 

name ;  and  then  when  the  supreme  illumination  comes  to 
Him  his  office  is  finished,  and  He  passes  away  from 
earth.  Of  course,  as  we  know,  the  last  Buddha  remained 
in  his  body  for  som.e  time,  still  teaching,  but  none  the 
less  the  office  of  the  Teacher  is  not  to  the  Buddhist  the 
Buddha,  but  he  who  is  to  be  the  Buddha — what  you 
would  call  the  Christ  glorified  and  ascended,  not  the 
Christ  on  earth  teaching  and  suffering.  It  is  interesting 
to  notice  how  in  the  various  religions  these  same  points 
arise  and  these  same  differences  are  seen  under  different 
names,  so  that  we  see  that  in  these  two  greatest  of  east- 
ern religions  a  Supreme  Teacher  is  recognised.  Now, 
from  the  occult  standpoint,  it  is  that  Teacher  who  came 
as  the  Christ;  and,  supposing  that  all  Christian  people 
recognised  that  fact,  they  would  reach  the  hearts  of  the 
eastern  world  far  better  than  they  do  now,  if,  instead  of 
telling  them  they  must  worship  the  Christ,  they  would 
say  to  them,  "You  are  already  worshipping  Him  under 
a  different  name,"  which  is  supremely  true ;  for  it  is  the 
same  Being  who  holds  that  office  through  all  these 
thousands  of  years,  the  same  supreme  Perfection.  He 
only  comes  into  manifestation  in  order  to  help  His 
younger  brethren ;  He  leaves  that  body  when  its  utility 
for  the  moment  is  over;  when,  being  so  great  in  com- 
parison with  the  people  to  whom  He  came,  they  could 
no  longer  tolerate  His  presence. 

Now  that  is  the  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Christ  which 
you  would  find  among,  say,  Occultists  or  well-instructed 
Theosophists.  They  recognise  in  the  Christ  of  Christen- 
dom the  Supreme  Teacher  of  the  world,  but  they  do  not 
admit  that  He  will  come  only  once  to  the  world;  they 


310  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

reverence  and  honour  Him  now  as  still  the  Supreme 
World-Teacher,  but  they  do  not  identify  Him  with  the 
great  disciple  who  took  the  Jewish  name  as  Jesus,  and 
who  is  now  amongst  us  as  the  Master  who  is  the  Guide 
and  Helper  of  the  Christian  Church.  There  is  the  point 
where  the  difference  would  come  in.  The  orthodox 
Christian  would  claim  Him  as  supreme  over  all  religions, 
but  he  would  hardly  recognise  difference  between  the 
disciple  who  has  become  the  Master  with  the  special 
Christian  Church  in  His  charge,  and  the  Supreme 
Teacher  who,  while  He  certainly  ever  sends  His  bene- 
diction upon  Christianity,  sends  it  also  upon  the  other 
great  religions  of  the  world.  This  is  where  I  feel  the 
difference  might  come  in  between  myself  and  many  of 
you.  To  us  the  great  Master  Jesus,  who  is,  as  you  would 
also  acknowledge — ^those  of  you,  at  least,  who  are  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  of  England — thus  still  dwelling  in 
a  human  body,  still  embodied  literally,  has  that  power 
which  the  Master  on  the  higher  planes  of  being  has,  of 
being  spiritually  in  touch  with  all  who  call  upon  Him, 
with  all  who  look  to  Him  for  guidance,  but  none  the  less 
still  possesses  a  physical  body.  This  is  a  point  of  enor- 
mous importance  (although  not  as  important  as  spirit- 
ual omnipresence),  for  it  means  to  us,  and  it  means  to 
many  Christians  who  think  with  us,  and  are  Theosophists 
with  us,  a  possibility  of  a  close  and  personal  relation,  as 
of  a  disciple  to  a  Master,  which  goes  somewhat  beyond 
the  spiritual  communion  which  every  true  Christian  has 
with  his  great  Teacher.  How  should  I  put  that  to  con- 
vey exactly  what  I  mean  in  clear  and  definite  language  ? 
I  must  put  it,  I  think,  by  giving  a  general  principle  with 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST  3II 

regard  to  these  great  Beings  whom  we  speak  of  as  Mas- 
ters, divine  men,  men  made  perfect,  which  works 
through  the  whole  of  that  great  Brotherhood.  They 
have  many  ways  of  working  in  the  world ;  through  their 
own  subtle,  spiritual  bodies  they  work,  sending  out 
floods  of  blessing  over  the  whole  world;  but,  in  addi- 
tion to  that  spiritual  impulse  and  spiritual  blessing 
which  flow  into  every  heart  that  opens  itself  to  receive 
them,  with  an  ever  present  and  potent  power,  there  is  an 
even  closer  and  more  specialised  communion  between 
the  Spirit  as  embodied  and  those  who  are  still  wearing 
human  bodies  themselves,  a  possibility  which  the  saints 
have  realised  of  that  personal  and  individual  and  spe- 
cialised communion  with  their  Master  where  they  saw 
Him,  heard  Him ;  where  to  them  He  became,  not  only  a 
spiritual  presence,  but  an  individualised  Teacher,  and 
even  Friend;  where  they  knew  themselves  as  disciples, 
and  knew  Him  as  Master,  which  is  the  great  mark,  after 
all,  of  those  who  are  specifically  called  the  saints.  For 
that  close  and  intimate  and  specialised  relationship  the 
body  is  necessary;  and  hence,  although  sceptics  have 
very  often  challenged  that  Article  of  the  Church  of 
England  where  it  says  that  "He  did  truly  take  again  His 
body,  with  flesh  and  bones,  and  all  things  appertaining 
to  the  perfection  of  man's  nature,"  it  does  convey  a  fun- 
damental and  essential  truth:  the  great  Teacher  is  not 
only  a  spiritual  Presence,  He  is  a  human  though  divine 
Being,  who  can  be  specifically  and  personally  known. 
And  if  this  latest  impulse  of  Divine  Wisdom  which  we 
call  Theosophy  is  to  be  of  use  to  Christendom,  it  will  be 
along  these  lines  of  gradually  winning  Christians  back 


312  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

to  a  conception  that  has  been  very  largely  lost — ^that 
their  touch  with  their  Divine  Master  must  be  much  closer 
and  more  realised  in  the  brain  and  human  heart  as  con- 
tact of  disciple  and  Teacher,  than  when  they  are  think- 
ing of  Him  as  Deity,  when  they  are  regarding  Him  as 
the  second  Person  in  the  Trinity.  How  far  that  will 
commend  itself  to  many  of  you  it  is,  of  course,  impos- 
sible for  me  to  say;  but  let  the  outline,  at  least,  be 
clear,  so  that  it  may  be  definitely  understood.  It  is  the 
conception  of  a  Christ  for  whom  a  body  was  prepared, 
and  prepared  by  His  own  well-loved  disciple,  who 
guarded,  tended,  trained  it  through  the  years  of  child- 
hood, of  youth,  and  of  early  manhood;  a  body  sur- 
rendered to  the  incoming  mighty  Personage,  who  is  the 
Supreme  Teacher  of  the  world,  incoming  at  the  point 
marked  by  the  Baptism,  worn  until  the  time  of  the 
death,  so  that  through  the  whole  of  that  teaching,  the 
ministerial  life,  it  was  not  Jesus  but  the  Christ  who  was 
the  Teacher  who  founded  Christianity.  That  body  is 
laid  aside,  but  He  is  still  Lord  of  all  religions,  and  He 
gives  to  His  well-beloved  disciple  who  became  the  Mas- 
ter Jesus  this  religion  specifically  as  his  charge,  his  work 
in  the  world.  Other  religions  would  have  other  Masters, 
but  only  one  Supreme ;  others  would  look  to  other  divine 
men  made  perfect,  but  would  recognise  beyond  them 
this  Master  of  Masters;  and  hence  all  religions  draw 
together  in  the  Supreme  Teacher,  and  find  there  unity 
in  that  greatest  and  mightiest  of  all.  So  that  every  re- 
ligion looks  up  to  the  one  Teacher  through  Masters 
who  specifically  belong  to  the  various  faiths  of  the 
world.  That  is  the  view  which  is  very  generally  held  in 
the  Theosophical  Society,  although  none  is  bound  to 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  CHRIST  313 

accept  it,  inasmuch  as  we  impose  no  dogmas  upon  any- 
one; it  is  the  view  which  is  taken  by  those  who  have 
been  most  thoroughly  instructed  in  this  matter;  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  one  of  extreme  interest  to  thought- 
ful people,  even  if  they  do  not  find  themselves  able  to 
accept  it. 

That  is,  then,  the  view  of  the  nature  of  Christ  that  I 
would  submit  to  you ;  and  if  you  look  at  it  you  will  see 
that  the  whole  of  the  criticisms  to  which  I  have  referred 
fall  to  pieces,  and  no  longer  need  disturb  the  hearts  or 
consciences  of  any ;  for  it  would  be  recognised  that  you 
have  here  a  manifestation  of  the  same  great  Being,  but 
not  a  unique  manifestation,  who  adapts  Himself  to  the 
needs  of  IJis  time,  gives  out  so  much  of  His  wisdom  and 
truth  as  He  thinks  can  be  accepted  by  the  people  of  His 
day  and  generation,  but  who,  in  giving  it,  gives  with  it 
an  inspiring  Spirit,  which  enables  future  generations  to 
find  more  and  more  in  that  teaching,  and  as  they  them- 
selves develop  spiritually,  to  find  ever  greater  depths  in 
the  teaching  which  had  been  given  by  the  Christ.  You 
will  see  how  naturally  that  view  passes  on  into  the 
future,  and  why  it  is  that  many  of  us,  believing  that  a 
new  civilisation  is  dawning  upon  earth,  also  believe  that 
the  same  Supreme  Teacher  will  again  be  manifested, 
again  to  tread  the  earth  as  He  trod  it  in  Judaea,  again  to 
enlighten  the  world  with  spiritual  wisdom,  again  to 
strike  the  keynote  of  a  new  civilisation,  gathering  all 
the  religions  of  the  world  under  that  supreme  teaching 
of  His  own,  so  that  we  look  forward  to  a  coming  Christ 
as  well  as  backward  to  a  Christ  in  His  last  manifestation 
on  the  earth. 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT 

in  face  of 
Revelation,   Inspiration,  and  Observation 

A  Lecture  delivered  to  the  British  Convention  of 
the  Theosophical  Society y  July  4thy  igog 


Lecture  VII 
The   Theosophical   Student 

in  face  of 

Revelation,   Inspiration,  and  Observation 

Friends:  Those  who  seriously  take  up  the  study  of 
Theosophy  should  not  be  satisfied  with  the  mere  reading 
of  the  voluminous  theosophical  literature  poured  out 
into  the  world  through  the  centuries  of  the  past,  and  con- 
tinuing to  flow  into  it  in  our  own  days.  They  should,  in 
addition,  if  they  have  any  innate  faculty  for  such  in- 
vestigation, prepare  to  develop  the  faculties  by  which 
they  may  verify  for  themselves  that  which  they  are 
told  by  others.  But  in  all  cases  much  theoretical  study  is 
desirable  before  passing  on  into  the  practical,  and  in 
most  cases  it  may  not  be  possible  to  develop  the  subtler 
senses  within  the  limits  of  the  present  incarnation,  al- 
though a  good  foundation  may  be  laid  for  such  de- 
velopment in  the  next.  Hence  theoretical  study  must 
form  a  large  part  of  the  training  of  every  theosophical 
student,  and  his  attitude  towards  such  study  is  a  mat- 
ter of  serious  importance.  He  need*  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  books  he  reads,  and  to  suit  his  attitude  to 
the  type  of  the  book ;  he  must  seek  to  understand  what 

317 


3l8  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

is  meant  by  Revelation,  what  by  Inspiration,  and  to 
distinguish  revealed  from  inspired  literature,  and  both 
from  the  records  of  observations. 

Some  Scriptures  which  are  regarded  as  authoritative 
lie  at  the  back  of  all  the  great  religions.  Thus  Hinduism 
has  the  Veda.  The  word  means  knowledge,  and  this 
knowledge  is  of  that  which  is  eternally  true.  It  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  Logos,  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord  of 
a  universe ;  the  knowledge  of  what  is,  not  of  what  seems; 
the  knowledge  of  realities,  not  of  phenomena.  This 
abides  ever  in  the  Logos;  it  is  part  of  Himself.  In  its 
manifested  form,  as  revealed  for  the  helping  of  man,  it 
becomes  the  Vedas,  and  in  this  form  goes  through  many 
stages,  until  finally  little  of  the  original  remains.  All 
Hindu  schools  of  philosophy  acknowledge  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  Vedas ;  but  after  this  formal  acknowl- 
edgment is  made,  the  intellect  is  allowed  to  range  freely 
at  its  will — to  inquire,  to  judge,  to  speculate.  Rigid  as 
Hinduism  is  in  its  social  polity,  it  has  ever  left  the 
human  intellect  free ;  in  philosophy,  in  metaphysic,  it  has 
ever  realised  that  truth  should  be  sought,  and  no  penalty 
inflicted  on  error;  error  being  sufficiently  penalised  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  error,  and  breeds  misfortunes  under 
natural  laws.  Even  to-day  that  ancient  liberty  is  main- 
tained, and  a  man  may  think  and  write  as  he  will  pro- 
vided that  he  follows  in  practise  the  social  customs  of 
his  caste.  The  Hindu  divides  all  knowledge  into  two 
types — ^the  supreme  and  the  lower.  In  the  lower  he 
places  all  his  sacred  books — following  in  this  the  dictum 
of  an  Upanishad  ^ — together  with  all  other  literature,  all 

^Mundakcpaniskat,  I.  i.  5. 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  3I9 

science,  all  instruction;  in  the  category  of  the  supreme 
he  places  only  "the  knowledge  of  Him  by  whom  all 
else  is  known."  There  you  have  Hinduism  in  a  nutshell. 
When  once  supreme  knowledge  has  been  attained  and 
illumination  has  been  experienced,  all  Scriptures  be- 
come useless.  This  is  asserted  plainly  and  boldly  in  a 
well-known  passage  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita:  "All  the 
Vedas  are  as  useful  to  an  enlightened  Brahmana  as  is  a 
tank  in  a  place  covered  over  with  water."  ^  What  need 
of  a  tank  when  water  is  everywhere?  What  need  of 
Scriptures  when  the  man  is  enlightened?  Revelation  is 
useless  to  the  man  to  whom  the  Self  is  revealed. 

In  the  early  days  of  Buddhism  the  Vedas  held  high 
place,  for  the  Lord  Buddha,  as  Dr.  Rhys  Davids  says, 
"was  born  and  brought  up,  and  lived  and  died  a  Hindu."  ^ 
But  the  charter  of  intellectual  freedom  for  Buddhists  is 
contained  in  the  wise  advice  of  their  Teacher:  "Do  not 
believe  in  a  thing  said  merely  because  it  is  said;  nor 
in  traditions  because  they  have  been  handed  down  from 
antiquity;  nor  in  rumours,  as  such;  nor  in  writings  by 
sages,  merely  because  sages  wrote  them  ....  nor 
on  the  mere  authority  of  your  own  teachers  or  masters. 
But  we  are  to  believe  when  the  writing,  doctrine,  or 
saying  is  corroborated  by  our  own  reason  and  conscious- 
ness. For  this  I  have  taught  you :  not  to  believe  merely 
because  you  have  heard ;  but  when  you  believed  of  your 
own  consciousness,  then  to  act  accordingly  and  abun- 
dantly." 3  Even  revelation,  for  the  Buddhist,  must 
be  brought  to  the  touchstone  of  reason  and  conscious- 

^Loc.  cit.,  ii.  46.  '  Buddhism^  p.  Ii6# 

*  Kalama  Suita  of  the  Anguttara  Nikaya. 


320  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

ness;  there  must  be  a  response  to  it  from  within,  the 
interior  witness  of  the  Self,  ere  it  can  be  accepted  as 
authoritative. 

In  the  Christian  and  Muhammadan  faiths — both 
largely  influenced  by  Judaism — the  authoritative  nature 
of  revelation  is  carried  further  than  in  any  earlier  faith. 
In  modern  days  the  yoke  of  a  revealed  Scripture  has 
been  much  lightened  for  Christianity  by  the  growth  of 
the  critical  spirit  and  by  the  researches  of  scholars.  The 
modern  Christian  student  is  little  more  hampered  by 
his  revelation  than  is  the  Hindu  by  his.  A  conventional 
reverence  is  yielded,  a  lifting  of  the  hat,  and  then  the 
student  goes  freely  on  his  way. 

What  is  Revelation?  It  is  a  communication  from  a 
Being  superior  to  humanity  of  facts  known  to  Himself, 
but  unknown  to  those  to  whom  He  makes  the  revelation 
— facts  which  they  cannot  reach  by  the  exercise  of  the 
powers  that  they  have  so  far  evolved.  These  facts  can 
be  verified  at  any  time  by  one  who  has  climbed  to  the 
level  of  the  Revealer,  who  may  be  an  Avatara,  a  Rishi,  a 
Founder  of  a  religion.  They  "speak  with  authority," 
the  authority  of  knowledge,  the  one  authority  to  which 
all  sane  men  bow.  We  do  not  find  that  these  great 
Beings  wrote  down  Their  teachings  Themselves;  They 
taught,  but  They  did  not  record.  Some  follower,  some 
disciple,  it  may  be  after  the  lapse  of  many  years,  even 
of  centuries,  wrote  down  what  he  or  his  forefathers  had 
heard;  hence  the  revelation — and  to  this  rule  there  is 
probably  no  exception — is  inevitably  to  some  extent  col- 
loured,  narrowed,  distorted  by  the  transcriber.  That 
which  was  heard  originally  by  those  round  the  divine 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  321 

Teacher  exists  indeed  in  the  akashic  records,  and  may 
ever  be  recovered  thence  by  those  who  have  developed 
the  inner  senses  by  which  those  records  may  be  read. 
In  many  cases  true  records  will  have  been  made  at  the 
time  by  highly  qualified  persons  ;  but  such  precious  books 
are  kept  securely  in  the  custody  of  their  chosen  guar- 
dians, in  secret  temples,  in  rock  libraries,  available  for 
the  study  of  high  Occultists,  but  of  none  other. 

The  Muhammadans  would  claim  that  in  the  case  of 
their  sacred  book  there  is  more  certainty  that  the  very 
words  of  their  Prophet  were  preserved.  And  doubt- 
less to  this  is  due  the  overwhelming  authority  of  Al 
Quran  in  the  minds  of  the  faithful  of  Islam. 

What  should  be  the  attitude  of  the  Theosophical 
Student  towards  revelation?  He  should  treat  the 
Scriptures  of  the  world  with  reverence,  remembering 
their  origin,  but  none  of  them  with  submission,  remem- 
bering that  they  are  transmitted  to  him  by  varied  chan- 
nels. He  should  call  to  his  aid  the  best  scholarship, 
should  gain  all  the  light  he  can  from  archaeological  and 
historical  researches,  and  use  his  best  critical  judgment 
in  separating  the  essential  truth  revealed  from  all  the 
accretions  that  may  have  grown  up  around  it.  If  he 
has  developed  his  higher  psychic  qualities,  he  should 
try  to  trace  and  disentangle  the  ancient  from  the  mod- 
ern, search  the  akashic  records  for  comparison,  con- 
firmation, or  contradiction  of  the  revelation  as  it  has 
come  into  his  hands.  How  immense  might  be  the  serv- 
ices of  such  Theosophical  Students  as  they  become  more 
numerous  and  better  equipped  for  this  gigantic  task. 
And  without  this  external  equipment  much  may  be  done 

21 


322  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

by  inner  unf oldment ;  he  may  unfold  within  himself 
his  own  spiritual  powers;  he  may  seek  in  profound 
meditation  the  truth  which  shines  in  the  revelation 
beneath  many  a  veil  of  ignorance  and  misconstruction; 
he  may  so  purify  his  life  that  his  bodies  will  become 
translucent  of  the  light  of  the  spirit  within  him,  will 
illumine  the  written  words.  "The  things  of  God 
knoweth  no  man  but  the  Spirit  of  God."  But  that  Spirit 
dwells  in  every  child  of  man;  and  as  His  light  shines 
out,  the  divine  things  are  revealed  to  the  pure  in  heart. 
Until  the  inner  Spirit  thus  responds  to  the  revealed 
teachings  and  statements,  the  Theosophical  Student  must 
hold  his  judgment  in  suspense  before  the  claims  of 
any  revelation.  It  is  not  true  for  him  until  he  can  re- 
echo it  in  the  voice  of  his  own  Spirit,  his  deepest  Self. 
Useful  and  beautiful  it  may  be ;  worthy  of  profoundest 
study  and  reverent  research  are  the  world's  Bibles.  But 
until  they  are  affirmed  by  the  Spirit  within  submission 
cannot  be  yielded,  lest  that  should  be  given  to  the  errors 
of  men  which  is  due  only  to  the  divine  Spirit. 

What  is  Inspiration?  The  raising  of  the  normal  hu- 
man faculties  by  some  extraneous  influence  through 
grade  after  grade  of  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual 
power,  up  to  the  point  where  the  extraneous  influence 
may  even  expel  the  man  from  his  body  and  use  it  for 
the  expression  of  another  individual;  where  the  new 
possessor  is  a  Being  at  a  height  utterly  transcending 
man,  inspiration  may  pass  into  revelation.  Some  may 
think  the  word  should  be  restricted  to  the  raising  of  the 
powers  of  the  subject  from  above  their  normal  capacity 
to  the  highest  point  of  their  possible  exercise,  short  of 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  323 

the  expulsion  of  their  owner  and  his  replacement  by 
another  individual  greater  than  himself. 

The  lower  grades  of  inspiration  are  within  the  experi- 
ence of  very  many.  Have  you  never  felt,  when  listening 
to  a  speaker  whose  knowledge  and  power  transcended 
your  own,  that  your  mental  faculties  were  lifted  to  a 
higher  level  than  that  to  which  you  could  rise  unaided  ? 
On  such  occasions  you  grasp  questions  that  hitherto 
have  eluded  you;  you  see  plainly,  where  before  there 
had  been  obscurity;  the  field  of  thought  becomes  il- 
lumined, and  objects  are  seen  in  hitherto  undreamed-of 
relations — ^you  feel  that  you  know.  On  the  following 
day  you  desire  to  share  with  a  friend  the  treasures  you 
acquired,  and  you  begin  to  recount  the  luminous  exposi- 
tion, to  describe  the  great  horizons  which  opened  before 
you.  You  fail:  where  is  the  light,  where  the  far-off 
scenes  over  which  your  eyes  had  swept  ?  Your  mind  has 
sunk  again  to  its  normal  level ;  the  inspiration  has  passed 
away.  As  with  the  intellectual,  so  with  the  moral  fac- 
ulties. You  had  seen  an  unknown  beauty,  had  felt  an 
overwhelming  admiration  for  the  lofty  and  the  pure: 
what  has  become  of  the  warmth,  the  ardour?  Are  the 
cold  ashes  of  the  intellectual  approval  all  that  remains 
of  the  throbbing  heart,  the  passionate  delight  in  the 
moral  ideal  ?  Why  does  it  now  look  so  cold,  so  grey,  so 
unattractive?  You  were  raised  to  a  higher  level  than 
you  can  reach  unassisted;  but  none  the  less  has  the 
moral  ideal  and  its  power  been  shown  to  thee  "in  the 
Mount,"  and  the  fact  that  you  have  once  experienced  its 
all-compelling  power  will  render  you  more  susceptible 
to  it  in  the  future,  and  the  day  will  come  when  that 


324  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

which  you  felt  when  inspired  by  another  shall  become 
the  normal  exercise  of  your  own  moral  faculties. 

Coming  to  higher  grades  of  inspiration,  we  may 
know,  some  of  us,  what  it  is  to  stand  in  the  presence 
of  the  Masters,  and  to  feel  the  marvellous  uplift  of 
Their  presence.  There  is  no  need  for  words,  no  need 
for  teaching;  Their  presence  is  enough.  From  that 
presence  we  go  out  again  into  the  ordinary  world,  to 
feel  the  difference  of  its  atmosphere  from  that  of  the 
Holy  One.  But,  we  have  knoimv,  and  the  memory  re- 
mains an  abiding  power. 

Those  who  have  written  or  spoken  under  inspiration 
have  been  thus  uplifted,  their  own  intellectual  and  moral 
faculties  have  thus  been*  stimulated,  and  raised  far 
above  their  normal  level.  It  is  still  they  who  write  or 
speak,  and  their  own  characters  and  temperaments  col- 
our what  they  say,  leave  their  own  impress  on  what 
they  write.  But  they  write  and  speak  far  more  nobly, 
far  more  powerfully  than  they  could  do  unassisted. 

And  so  we  may  rise  from  grade  to  grade  of  inspira- 
tion until  we  reach  the  stage  at  which  the  mind  and  emo- 
tions of  the  man  no  longer  sway  his  body,  but  the  body 
is  wholly  taken  possession  of  and  used  by  One  greater 
than  himself.  Then  it  is  no  longer  the  man  himself  who 
speaks,  but  "the  Spirit  of"  his  "Father  who  speaketh 
in"  him;  his  own  limitations  are  struck  away,  his  own 
idiosyncrasies  vanish,  and  the  inspired  utterances  flow 
forth  unsullied.  Then  inspiration  may  range  into 
revelation. 

The  process  of  all  this  is  a  very  simple  one.  We 
know  that  by  the  correlation  between  changes  in  con- 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  325 

sciousness  and  vibrations  of  matter,  each  change  Jn 
consciousness  is  accompanied  by  a  vibration  of  the  mat- 
ter appropriated  by  the  consciousness  and  forming  its 
body ;  each  vibration  of  the  matter  of  a  body  is  accom- 
panied by  a  change  in  the  embodied  consciousness. 
Either  one  of  the  pair  may  be  the  initiator ;  the  other  ever 
responds.  When  two  or  more  people  are  together,  one 
more  evolved  than  the  other  or  others,  the  more  evolved 
person,  thinking,  desiring,  acting,  sets  up  in  his  own 
bodies,  mental,  astral,  and  physical,  a  series  of  vibra- 
tions which  corresponds  to  the  changes  in  his  conscious- 
ness; these  vibrations  cause  similar  vibrations  in  the 
mental,  astral,  and  physical  matter  intervening  between 
himself  and  the  less  advanced  person  or  persons  pres- 
ent. These  vibrations  in  the  intervening  matter  cause 
similar  vibrations  in  the  neighbouring  body  or  bodies. 
These  vibrations  are  immediately  answered  by  corre- 
sponding changes  in  the  embodied  consciousness  or  con- 
sciousnesses, and  the  person  or  persons  concerned,  thus 
placed  en  rapport  with  one  more  advanced,  think,  de- 
sire, act  on  a  higher  level  than  would  be  possible  for 
them  on  their  own  initiative.  They  are  able  to  under- 
stand more  keenly,  to  feel  more  warmly,  to  act  more 
nobly  than  they  could  do  unassisted.  When  the  stimulus 
is  removed  they  gradually  sink  back  to  their  normal 
level,  but  memory  is  left,  and  they  remember  that  they 
"have  known."  Moreover,  it  is  more  easy  for  them  to 
respond  a  second  time,  and  so  on  and  on,  until  they 
establish  themselves  on  the  higher  level  permanently. 
Hence  the  value  of  companionship  with  those  more  ad- 
vanced than  ourselves,  of  living  "in  their  atmosphere." 


3^6  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Words  are  not  necessary ;  little  speech  may  pass ;  but  in- 
sensibly the  subtle  body  is  tuned  to  a  higher  key,  and 
only,  perhaps,  when  the  companionshinp  is  interrupted 
do  the  younger  become  conscious  of  the  change  which 
has  thus  been  brought  about  by  contact  with  the  elder. 

Similar  results  may  be  brought  about  by  reading  the 
writings  of  those  who  are  more  evolved  than  we  are. 
A  similar  series  of  changes  is  set  up,  though  less  power- 
fully than  by  the  living  presence.  Moreover,  intent  and 
reverent  study  may  attract  the  attention  of  the  writer 
whether  he  be  in  or  out  of  the  body,  and  may  draw  him 
to  the  student,  and  thus  cause  the  latter  to  be  enveloped 
in  his  atmosphere  quite  as  potently  as  though  he  were 
physically  present.  Hence  the  value  of  reading  noble 
literature :  we  are  keyed  up  to  its  level  for  the  time,  and 
such  reading,  steadily  persevered  in,  will  lift  us  to  a 
higher  level  and  establish  us  thereon.  Hence  the  value 
of  a  brief  reading  before  meditation,  lifting  us  into  an 
air  more  favourable  to  the  work  of  meditation  than  we 
can  start  from  unassisted.  Hence  the  value  also  of  "holy 
places"  for  such  meditation,  places  where  the  atmosphere 
is  literally  vibrating  at  a  higher  rate  than  our  own ;  and 
hence  the  advice  so  often  given  by  the  instructed,  to 
keep,  if  possible,  a  room  or  closet  set  apart  for  medita- 
tion, such  a  place  soon  gaining  an  atmosphere  purer 
and  subtler  than  that  of  the  surrounding  world.  It  is  of 
little  use  for  the  theosophical  student  to  be  acquainted 
with  these  laws  if  he  does  not  utilise  them  to  his  own 
helping,  and  to  the  helping  of  those  around  him. 

What  should  be  the  attitude  of  the  theosophical  stu- 
dent towards  the  inspired  man  or  the  inspired  book? 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  327 

He  should  be  receptive,  stilling  all  his  normal  vibrations 
so  far  as  is  possible,  and  opening  his  whole  nature  to 
the  impact  and  influx  of  the  waves  of  vibration  that 
pour  forth  upon  him.  But  his  attitude  should  be  more 
than  receptive:  he  should  gently  endeavour  to  attune 
himself  and  to  co-operate  with  the  inflowing  waves.  He 
should  try  to  strengthen  the  sympathetic  vibrations,  so 
that  the  accompanying  changes  in  consciousness  may 
be  as  complete  as  possible.  For  this  he  must  pour  out 
to  the  inspiring  Object  his  love,  his  trust,  his  complete 
confidence  and  self-surrender,  for  thus  only  can  he  at- 
tune his  bodies  into  sympathy  with  those  of  the  Inspirer. 
He  must,  for  the  time,  empty  himself  of  his  own  ideas, 
his  own  feelings,  his  own  activities,  surrendering  him- 
self to  reproduce,  not  to  initiate.  As  the  unruffled  lake 
can  mirror  the  moon  and  the  stars,  but  as  that  same  lake 
rippled  by  a  passing  breeze  can  yield  only  broken  re- 
flexions, so  may  the  lower  being,  steadying  his  mind, 
calming  his  desires,  and  imposing  stillness  on  his  activi- 
ties, reproduce  within  himself  the  image  of  the  higher, 
so  may  the  disciples  mirror  the  Master's  mind.  And 
so,  also,  if  his  own  thoughts  spring  up,  his  own  desires 
arise,  will  he  have  but  broken  reflexions,  dancing  lights, 
that  tell  him  nought. 

If  you  are  going  to  read  one  of  the  inspired  books  of 
the  world — Th£  Imitation  of  Christ ;  The  Golden  Verses 
of  Pythagoras ;  The  Light  on  the  Paths;  The  Voice  of 
the  Silence — it  is  well  to  preface  the  reading  with  a 
prayer,  if  that  be  your  habitual  way  of  raising  your 
consciousness  to  its  highest  mood,  or  with  the  repetition 
of  a  mantra,  or  the  soft  chanting  of  some  familiar  and 


328  THE  CHANGING   WORLD 

beloved  rhythm,  in  order  to  bring  yourself  into  a  sym- 
pathetic condition.  Then  read  a  phrase,  re-read,  brood 
over  it,  savour  it  mentally,  suck  out  its  essence,  its 
life. 

Thus  shall  your  subtle  body  become,  to  some  extent 
at  least,  attuned  to  that  of  the  inspired  writer,  and 
repeating  his  vibrations,  shall  set  up  in  your  conscious- 
ness the  corresponding  changes.  Priceless  is  the  value 
of  inspired  books :  they  are  steps  of  a  ladder  set  up  be- 
tween earth  and  heaven,  a  veritable  Jacob's  ladder,  on 
which  descend  and  ascend  the  angels  of  God. 

There  remains  a  third  class  of  books  worthy  of  the 
attention  of  the  theosophical  student,  but  towards  which 
his  attitude  should  be  entirely  different  from  those  which 
he  adopts  towards  the  revealed  and  the  inspired.  These 
are  books  containing  the  observations  of  students  more 
advanced  than  himself,  observations  carried  on  upon 
planes  above  the  physical,  observations  made  by  stu- 
dents who  are  evolving  in  knowledge  of,  and  in  power 
on,  those  planes,  and  have  not  yet  reached  the  stature 
of  the  Perfect  Man.  There  are  books  such  as  The 
Secret  Doctrine  and  Esoteric  Buddhism,  written  by 
disciples,  which  are  not  records  of  the  direct  observa- 
tions of  students,  but  are  rather  transcriptions  of  the 
teachings  of  Masters,  into  which  errors  may  creep  by 
misunderstandings  of  those  teachings.  H.  P.  Blavatsky 
herself  told  us  that  there  were  inevitably  errors  in  The 
Secret  Doctrine;  and  as  we  have  in  that  wonderful  book 
her  own  descriptions  of  the  pictures  shown  to  her  by 
her  Master,  there  is  an  opening  for  possible  errors  of 
observation-:  these  are  probably  not  serious,  as  she  was 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  329 

carefully  overlooked  and  aided  during  the  writing. 
These  two  books  stand  apart  from  the  bulk  of  our  liter- 
ature, the  Masters  having  been  largely  concerned  in 
their  production.  The  books  I  have  in  mind  are  those 
written  by  disciples,  using  their  own  normal  faculties, 
faculties  still  in  course  of  evolution;  books  relating 
chiefly  to  the  astral,  mental,  and  buddhic  planes,  to  the 
constitution  of  man,  to  the  past  of  individuals,  nations, 
races,  and  worlds.  We  are  gradually  accumulating  a 
large  amount  of  literature  of  this  kind,  a  literature  of 
observations  by  students  using  superphysical  faculties. 
With  regard  to  this,  certain  things  need  to  be  borne  in 
mind. 

First :  the  students  in  question  are  in  course  of  evolu- 
tion, and  the  faculties  of  which  they  make  use  to-day, 
which  have  become  their  normal  faculties,  are  more  de- 
veloped and  reach  higher  planes  than  those  which  they 
used  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago.  Hence  they  see  now  very 
much  more  than  they  saw  then,  both  in  quantity  and 
quality,  and  this  enlarged  sight  must  inevitably  give  re- 
ports differing  in  fulness  from  that  of  the  earlier  and 
narrower  vision. 

Secondly:  this  greater  fulness  will  change  relative 
proportions  and  perspective.  A  thing  which  seemed 
imposing  and  independent  when  seen  alone,  may  become 
subordinate  and  comparatively  insignificant  when  seen 
as  a  part  of  a  larger  whole.  It  may  change  form  and 
colour,  seen  with  surroundings  which  become  visible 
only  when  it  is  looked  at  with  a  higher  vision.  That 
which  was  a  globe,  sailing  through  space,  to  the  phys- 
ical eye,  becomes  the  free  end  of  a  continuous  body, 


330  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

materially  attached  to  the  sun,  when  seen  with  super- 
physical  sight.  Was  it  false  to  describe  it  a  globe  ?  Yes, 
and  no. 

It  was  and  is  a  globe  on  the  physical  plane,  answering 
to  all  that  is  meant  by  a  globe  down  here.  In  subtler 
regions  it  is  not  a  globe,  but  a  body,  the  tip  of  which 
is  a  globe  only  to  gross  vision,  vision  to  which  its  con- 
tinuation is  invisible. 

Thirdly:  the  keener  vision. detects  intermediate  stages 
before  unseen,  and  shows  a  series  of  changes  between 
two  which,  to  the  less  acute  sight,  were  in  immediate 
sequence.  Thus,  in  the  earlier  observations,  it  was  said 
that  the  ultimate  physical  atom  broke  up  into  astral 
matter.  When  a  similar  phenomenon  is  studied  twelve 
years  later,  it  is  seen  that  the  physical  atom  breaks  up 
into  an  immense  number  of  inconceivably  minute  par- 
ticles, and  that  these  immediately  group  themselves  into 
forty-nine  astral  atoms,  which  may  or  may  not,  again, 
combine  into  astral  molecules.  Again,  a  whirling  wall 
was  mentioned :  keener  vision  sees  no  wall,  but  an  illu- 
sory enclosure,  caused  by  rapid  motion,  like  the  fiery 
circle  traced  by  a  whirling  fire-tipped  stick.  So,  in  the 
continuous  light  of  gas  or  electricity,  a  whirling  disk 
of  black  and  white  rays  shows  grey ;  put  out  the  lights, 
and  let  the  darkness  be  rent  by  a  lightning-flash,  the 
disk  hangs  motionless,  every  black  and  white  ray  dis- 
tinct. Which  is  the  true  observation  ?  The  eye  in  each 
case  bears  true  witness  to  what  it  sees.  The  dififerent 
conditions  impose  upon  it  dififerent  visions. 

Other  dififerences  also  arise,  but  these  may  serve  as 
samples.   Are,  then,  books  relating  to  observations  use- 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT  33I 

less  ?  They  only  become  useless,  even  mischievous,  when 
the  theosophical  student  treats  them  as  revelations  or 
inspirations  instead  of  as  observations.  Observation  is 
the  basis  of  scientific  knowledge;  the  correction  of 
earlier  observations  by  later  ones  is  the  condition  of 
scientific  progress.  The  student  of  optics,  when  con- 
fronted with  the  black-and-white  rayed  disk,  the  grey 
disk,  the  whirling  disk  hanging  motionless,  does  not  con- 
clude that  the  conflicting  observations  make  observations 
useless.  He  searches  for  and  finds  the  conditions  of 
light,  of  the  constitution  of  the  eye,  which  explain  the 
equally  true  though  contradictory  reports.  He  submits 
the  observations  to  renewed  experiment  and  to  the 
scrutiny  of  reason,  until  from  the  contradictions  emerges 
the  many-sided  truth. 

What  should  be  the  attitude  of  the  theosophical  stu- 
dent to  books  of  observations?  To  all  such  books  you 
must  take  up  the  attitude  of  the  scientific  student,  not 
of  the  believer.  You  must  bring  to  bear  upon  them  a 
bright  intelligence,  a  keen  mind,  an  eager  intellect,  a 
thoughtful  and  critical  reason.  You  must  not  accept  as 
final,  observations  made  by  other  students,  even  though 
those  students  are  using  faculties  which  you  yourselves 
have  not  as  yet  developed.  You  should  accept  them  only 
for  what  they  are — observations  liable  to  modification, 
to  correction,  to  reviewal.  You  should  hold  them  with  a 
light  grasp,  as  hypotheses  temporarily  accepted  until 
confirmed  or  negated  by  further  observations,  including 
your  own.  If  they  illuminate  obscurities,  if  they  con- 
duce to  sound  morality,  take  them  and  use  them;  but 
never  let  them  become  fetters  to  your  mind,  gaolers  of 


332  THE   CHANGING   WORLD 

your  thought.  Study  these  books,  but  do  not  swallow 
them ;  understand  them,  but  hold  your  judgment  in  sus- 
pense: these  books  are  useful  servants  but  dangerous 
masters ;  they  are  to  be  studied,  not  worshipped.  Make 
your  own  opinions,  do  not  borrow  those  of  others;  do 
not  be  in  such  a  hurry  to  know  that  you  accept  other 
people's  knowledge,  for  ready-made  opinions,  like  ready- 
made  clothes,  are  neither  well-fitting  nor  becoming. 

There  is  a  dangerous  tendency  in  the  Theosophical 
Society  to  make  books  of  observations  authoritative 
instead  of  using  them  as  materials  for  study.  We  must 
not  add  to  the  number  of  blind  believers  who  already 
exist,  but  to  the  number  of  sane  and  sober  students,  who 
patiently  form  their  own  opinions  and  educate  their 
own  faculties.  Use  your  own  judgment  on  every  ob- 
servation submitted  to  you;  examine  it  as  thoroughly 
as  possible ;  criticise  it  as  fully  as  you  can.  It  is  a  poor 
service  you  do  us  when  you  turn  students  into  popes, 
and,  parrot-like,  repeat  as  authoritative,  statements  that 
you  do  not  know  to  be  true.  Moreover,  blind  belief  is 
the  road  to  equally  blind  scepticism :  you  place  a  student 
on  a  pedestal  and  loudly  proclaim  him  to  be  a  prophet, 
despite  his  protests;  and  then,  when  you  find  he  has 
made  some  mistake,  as  he  warned  you  was  likely,  you 
turn  round,  pull  him  down,  and  trample  on  him.  You 
belabour  him  when  you  should  belabour  your  own  blind- 
ness, your  own  stupidity,  your  own  anxiety  to  believe. 

Is  it  not  time  that  we  should  cease  to  be  children,  and 
begin  to  be  men  and  women,  realising  the  greatness  of 
our  opportunities  and  the  smallness  of  our  achieve- 
ments? It  is  not  time  to  offer  to  Truth  the  homage  of 


THE  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDENT 


333 


study  instead  of  that  of  blind  credulity?  Let  us  ever 
be  ready  to  correct  a  mistaken  impression  or  an  imper- 
fect observation,  to  walk  with  open  eyes  and  mind 
alert,  remembering  that  the  best  service  to  Truth  is  ex- 
amination. Truth  is  a  sun,  shining  by  its  own  light; 
once  seen,  it  cannot  be  rejected.  "Let  Truth  and  false- 
hood grapple;  who  ever  knew  Truth  put  to  the  worse 
in  a  fair  encounter?" 


TOPICAL  INDEX 

TO 

THE  CHANGING 
WORLD 

BY 
ANNIE  BESANT 


ARRANGED  BY  THE 

CHICAGO  LODGE, T.S. 

FOR  THE  USE  OF  STUDENTS 


Copyright  1910  by 

THEOSOPHICAL  BOOK  CONCERN 

26  Van  Buren  Street,  CHICAGO 


INDEX 

A 

Abbas  Effendi,  spiritual  teacher  and  prophet 150 

Adept,  mark  of 231 

standard  of,  at  Shamballah 294, 295 

(see  Masters  of  Wisdom,  also  Manu). 

Akashic  records,  contain  original  revelations 321 

Age,  signs  of  closing 3 

in  religion 7-16 

in  science   16-21 

in  art 21-24 

in  social  conditions 27-46 

transitional    4,  5, 149, 150 

signs  of  opening,  in  religion 54-63 

in    science 63-70 

in   art 70-74 

in  social  conditions 75-102 

America,  social  conditions  in 34, 35, 36 

Ancient  Wisdom,  a  great  river 285 

truths  of,  Theosophy 183 

religion  traced  to  universal 190 

Angels,  and  Archangels 137, 191, 271 

disappearance  of  the  teaching 271 

Archaeology    (see  comparative  Mythology) 113, 188, 189 

Archangels  (see  Angels). 

Aristotle    107 

Art,  beauty  a  necessity 21, 22 

in  India 21, 22 

imitative,  not  creative 23 

new,  created  by  new  senses 70,  77 

colour  and  sound,  coloured  sounds 70, 72, 73 

reaches  out  by  emotion 73 

colour  and  emotion,  sound  and  emotion 70,  71,  72,  73 

and  Theosophy  in  the  coming  civilization 200, 201,  202 

restoration  of,  a  necessity 201 

is  beauty,  not  common  place 202 

3 


4  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Artist,  the,  priest  of  the  beautiful 202 

Aryan  Race,  fifth  root  race 3 

ideal  type  of 116 

to  develop  mind 118 

greatest  development  of  mind 118 

sub-races  of 137, 138, 212, 213 

fourth  sub-race,  emotional 184 

fifth  sub-race  214, 215 

characteristics    217, 218 

dominant  note   184 

selection  of  stock  for  and  development  of. 229, 230 

Astral  aura  (see  Aura). 

Astral  body  of  next  race 53, 54 

organized  under  pressure  of  thought 124 

activity  of  its  sense  organs 125 

its  senses  and  psychism 125 

and  the  pituitary  body 125 

vibrations  and  emotions  in 167 

organization  of 170,  172, 173, 174 

and  dreams 175 

unifying  with  physical 176 

false  methods  of  organization 177, 178 

organized  by  meditation  and  purity  of  life.  178, 179 

Astral  colours  (See  Colours). 

Astral  senses   5 1, 53,  57, 58,  59 

effect  of  development 60-63 

builders  of  new  art 70,  73 

methods  of  development  (see  astral  body).. 

177-179 

Atlantean  Race,  the  fourth,  predominant  traits 114, 211 

source  of  the  fifth  root  race 115, 210 

fourth  sub-race  of,  the  Toltec IIS 

fifth  sub-race  of,  the  Semitic 115, 230, 231 

new  root  race 115,211 

chosen     from 115,211 

developed  mind 211 


TOPICAL  INDEX  5 

Atlantis,  continent  of I13 

Atom  and  science  in  the  West 17 

the  chemical,  our  power  of  seeing 64 

experiments  in  seeing  (see  Clairvoyance) 64, 65 

vibrations  of,  and  consciousness  of  the  Logos 165 

physical,  earlier  and  later  observations  compared ...  330 

Atonement,    vicarious 148 

Aura,  colours  of  the  astral 166 

colours  of,  and  consciousness 166 

vibrations  of,  and  consciousness 167, 168 

Australia,   social  condition   in 37-41 

Avatara,  description  of 133, 134, 135 

Aztecs    (see    My'chology) 113. 189 

B 

Bab,  messenger  in  Persia  of  coming  Christ 150 

Baptism,  a  sacrament   (see  Sacraments) 266, 267 

marked  incoming  of  the  Christ  (see  Christ) 306 

Beauty,  a   necessity 21, 22 

human,    finest    type    of 116,117 

what  it  means 201 

theosophy  teaches  reverence  for 201 

in   ancient   Greece 193, 203 

an  essential  part  of  utility 224 

Besant,  Annie,  joined  Society  in  1887. 228 

facts  re-communicated  to  her  in  1895 229 

referred  to  as  temporary  personality 258 

her   opponents 259 

and  H.  P.  B 290 

her  message  to  the  T.  S 296 

Bhagavad-Gita,   referred  to 27Q 

quoted  280, 282 

on  scriptures  and  the  enlightened  man 319 

Bibles,  of  the  race,  testimony  of 156, 157 


6  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Birmingham  201 

Blavatsky,  H.  P.,  practical  proof  of  Brotherhood 26, 27 

on  socialism 44 

and  "The  Secret  Doctrine" 209 

referred   to 26, 227 

disciple  of  Master  M 228 

and  inner  side  of  T.  S 234 

tribute  to,  on  White  Lotus  Day,  1909 

282, 283, 284 

her  return 286, 287 

her  endeavor  frustrated 288 

a  messenger  of   the   Masters 290 

and  Mrs.  Besant 290 

and  errors  in  secret  Doctrine 328 

Bodies,  evolution   of 49, 52, 54 

the  instruments  of  higher  consciousness 155 

natural,  triple  differentiation 162 

spiritual  and  natural 163 

spiritual   163 

physical,  organization  of 169, 170 

subtle,  organization  of 170 

mental,  organization  of 171 

spiritual,  organization  of 172 

signs  of  organization  of  astral  (see  Telepathy,  also 

Dreams)     173 

astral,  organization  of 170, 171, 172, 173 

unifying  physical  and  astral 176 

departments  of  man's  nature 211 

of  sixth  sub-race 222 

value  of  scientific  way  of  dealing  with  (see  Pituitary 

Body,  also  Astral) 268 

Body,  human,  of  Jesus 147 

Books,  and  the  Theosophical  Student 318 

revealed   321 

inspired    327 

of  observations   328,  329, 330 

when  useless  or  mischievous 331 


TOPICAL  INDEX  7 

Brotherhood,  H.  P.  B.'s  example  of 27 

showing    itself 45 

applied  to  social  conditions 75 

not  equality 7S>7^,77 

societies  which  recognize 77 

and  reincarnation  78, 79, 80 

karma    81 

religion   83, 84, 85 

family  and  state 78, 86, 87, 88 

and  education   82,  89 

capital  punishment   95 

economics    97, 98, 99, 100 

politics    loi,  102 

of  religions   237 

mightiest  thing  in  all  the  world 242 

chosen  by  Masters  as  our  mark 243 

Bodhisattva,  the  supreme  teacher 137 

manifests  in  every  sub-race 137 

last  manifestation  as  the  Christ 149 

will  again  appear 149 

(see  Hermes,  Zarathustra,  Orpheus) 
Buddha,  Wisdom-Truth. 

spiritual    man 118 

"The  Enlightened" 135 

one  in  every  Root  race 135 

the,  belongs  to  our  race 136 

Guatama,  last  manifestation 136 

former  manifestations  in  Aryan  race 136 

passed  on,  Son  united  with  Father 142 

Buddhi,  qualities  of,  (see  Christ)   241 

Buddhism,  revived  in  Ceylon 236 

Buddhists,  their  intellectual  freedom 319-320 

C 

Catholic  Spirit,  emotional  temperament 245 

definition    of 252 

its  mind  teachable 253 


8  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Catholic  Spirit,  easily  lead  along  path  of  Occultism 253 

and    Mysticism 253 

type  of,  responds  to  idea  of  Masters 254 

and  Occultism 255-256 

the  Leadbeater  question 257-258 


Chaldaea 


Christ,  the  time  of  birth  (see  Rome) 4,  5 

"Jesus  or  Christ"  (see  Hibbert  Journal)   

10,  II,  147, 298, 299 

type  of  spiritual  man 118 

supreme  teacher  of  fifth  sub-race 142, 143 

the  Divine  Power,  the  Spirit  of  God 147 

signs  of  His  coming 148, 149 

looked  for  by  occult  world 151 

shall  we  recognize  Him 151, 152, 153, 292 

characteristics    of 152, 153 

The  Wisdom 160 

words    of 222 

the  Mystic,  emblem  of  self-sacrifice 238 

showed  new  type  to  fifth  sub- race 241 

will  show  qualities  of  Buddhi 241 

His  reception  and  treatment 2S8 

"Christ  in  Modern  Theology" 299 

time  of  His  coming 291 

His  powers 303 

unfolding  of  in  Man 305 

and  Jesus,  relation  between 305 

view  taken  of  Him  by  occultists 305 

His  incoming  marked  by  Baptism  (see  Baptism) .  .306 

the,  who  is  He  ? 307 

the  world  teacher 309 

not  Jesus,  founder  of  Christianity 312 

not  a  unique  manifestation 313 

will  again  be  manifest 313 

Christos,   office  of 143 

the  anointed  one 144 

grade  of  initiation  in  Mysteries 144, 307 


1 


TOPICAL  INDEX  9 

Christian  life,  mystic 148 

Christian  Commonwealth   183 

Christianity,   early   days   of 145 

mysteries  in 145 

and  comparative  Mythology 189 

key-note  in 193 

mystical,    spreading 236 

should  give  idea  of  self-sacrifice 238 

how  to  preserve  it 239, 240 

and  revealed  Scriptures 320 

Church,  the  early,  and  the  Gnostics 145 

the  early,  and  the  Mysteries 263 

Anglican,  referred  to 272 

Guilds  of  healing  in 273 

must  ever  give  sacraments 277 

Civilizations,  of  the  past — ^perished 27-28 

of  men,  a  succession  is  observed 184 

the  coming  prevailing  mark  spirituality 184 

and    Brotherhood 185 

religion  in  coming 184-185 

Clairvoyance,  under  hypnotism  (see  Rontgen  rays)  .  ..67,  57,  58 

slight,  seeing  atom 64 

Aura    165-166 

Clairvoyant  vision  of  sacrament 269 

Clement  of  Alexandria  (see  St.  Qement) 

Colour,  new,  given  by  new  senses 70 

new,  to  indicate  higher  emotions 70 

Astral,    seen    by    som^e    painters    (see    Mortimer 

Menpes)     71 

and  sound,  coloured  sounds 73 

in  Astral  aura 166 

each  religion  has  its 192 

Comparative  Mythology   (see  Mythology) 


lo  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Conscience  must  be   enlightened 13 

and  matter,  development  of 52 

human    69,  74 

and  correspondences 104 

evolution  of,  three  stages 106-107 

first  dawn  of,  will  to  live 109 

second,  of  emotions no 

third,  power  of  mind no 

coming  type  of 118 

mark  of,  in  coming  race 1 19-120 

higher,  and  flesh  and  alcohol 124 

unfoldment  stimulated  by  meditation 127, 176 

purity 178 

of  Logos,  Great  Beings  in 133 

the  larger  I55 

and  bodies  I5S 

higher,  evidence  of 156-157 

threefold  division  in  man  (see  St.  Paul)...  159 

waking  the  159-162 

and  form,  relation  between 165 

of  Logos  and  atomic  vibrations 165 

signs  of  unfolding 172 

man  dominated  by 184 

next  principle  to  unfold 184 

unfolding  taught  in  every  religion 191 

and  vibrations  of  matter 325 

Correspondences,  principle  of 104 

used  by  Mystics 104 

science    104 

Swedenborg    104 

theory  of,  used  to  explain  past  and  fore- 
cast future 104-107 

and  embryology 106 

in  evolutionary  stages 106 

Cortez 189 

Coulomb   Plot  283 

Crime  (see  Penology)   


TOPICAL  INDEX  ii 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  and  Charles  I.  (see  Puritan  Spirit) 246 

example  of  Puritan  Mystic  (see  Reformation)  .  .254 


Damodar,  tribute  to 286 

his  return 289 

Deduction  in  ancient  philosophies 107 

and  the  science  of  mathematics 107 

characteristic  of  the  Platonic  method 107 

explains  past  and  forecasts  the  future 108,  no 

used  by  Occult  Science 108 

later  stages  of  evolution  traced  by in 

and  reincarnation   in 

Desire  and   will 161 

determined  by  attractions  outside  (see  Emotions)  .  .161 

Devapi,  sketch  of 227 

Bodhisattva  of  the  sixth  race 228 

Devas  137 

drawn  to  altars  of  sacraments 271 

Dreams,  physical    I75 

show  organization  of  Astral  body 175 


Economics,  conditions  in  England 97, 98 

in  Australia 99 

and    Brotherhood 97,  98, 99,  100 

problems  solved  by  whom  (see  Social  Condi- 
tion)   (see  Supply  and  Demand) 100,101 

Education,  and    morals 12 

in  the  Old  Testament 14 

and  religion   12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 86 

social  problems  82, 86, 87, 88 

Brotherhood    82-89 

in  play  88, 89 

religious,  in  peril  in  England 238 

in  India,  influence  of  Theos.  Soc 239 


12  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Egypt,   ancient,  compared  with  Southern  Mexico 113 

Book  of  the  Dead  (see  Comparative  Mythology) ..  189 

religious  key-note,  knowledge 193 

Emotions,  colour  and  sound 70, 71, 72 

art  reaches  out  by 73 

Wisdom-Love  reflected  as  emotions 109,  no 

fourth  root-race   (see  Atlantean) 114 

root  of 161 

science  of  (see  Science  of  Emotions  by  Bhaga- 

van    Das)     167,168 

dominant  note  of  Keltic  sub-race  (see  Aryan)  . .  184 

Epistles,  the,  deal  with  an  indwelling  Spirit   (see  Christ, 
also  St.  Paul) 147,  304 

Esoteric  Buddhism  and  the  Masters 328, 329 

Evolution,   slow  course  of 3 

of  Divine   germ 48, 49 

of  bodies  and  senses 49 

of  new  race 114,115,116 

of  nervous  system 121 

higher,  and  environments 121 

hastening,  by  meditation   126, 127 

of  consciousness  into  Divine  Man 191 

human  not  at  the  top  of 240 

goal  of,  a  manifest  Divine  humanity 304 

F 

Fairbairn,  Doctor,  on  "Christ  in  Modem  Theology" 299 

issue  not  well  taken 300, 301 

G 

Garibaldi,  referred  to 82 

Gautama  Buddha  (see  Bodhisattva) 141 

Genius    172 

Germany  attained  national  unity 81 

Glasgow 201 


TOPICAL  INDEX  13 

Gnosis,  ancient  (see  Theosophy) 185 

Gnostics,  necessary  in  Christian  Church  (see  Origen) 145 

Gnostic,  heresy 306 

God,   extra    cosmic 9 

immanent    10 

spiritual  knowledge  of,  how  reached 55 

"The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you" 55 

existence  of,  how  demonstrated 9>  55.  5^,  57 

manifesting  triple  nature  (Trinity) 159 

consciousness  of,  and  vibration  of  atom 165 

unity  of,  taught  in  every  religion 190 

in  manifestation  ever  triple 190 

vast  family  of 191 

how  we  may  help,  to  manifest 294 

Gospels,  the,  deal  with  an  historical  person  (see  Christ)... 

147,  304 

Goths    117, 214 

Grail   (see  Holy  Grail), 

Greece,  key-note  of  religion,  beauty 193 

ancient,  beauty  in 203 

H 

Haeckcl   113 

Hebrew  people    211 

and  the  Founder  of  Christianity 303 

Hermes,  the  Thrice  Greatest  (see  Bodhisattva) 138 

Hibbert  Journal,  article  "Jesus  or  Christ" 10, 11,  298, 299 

"Christ  in  Modern  Theology" 299 

Hierarchies,  recognized  by  Masons  and  by  Theosophists . .  ^^ 

based  on  Brotherhood  of  Man 78 

of  superhuman  beings,  rank  in 132 

of  spiritual    intelligences    191 

not  known  to  Protestants 271 

and    apostolic   succession 272 


14  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Hinduism,  a  text  book  of 83, 84 

revived   236 

its  two  great  teachings 193, 238 

and  secular  education 238, 239 

sacraments   numerous   in 262 

all  great  actions  are  sacramental 274 

and  the  Veda  (see  Veda) 318 

in   a    nut-shell 319 

and  freedom  of  intellect 318, 319 

Historical  sense  in  East  and  West  contrasted 139, 140 

Holy  Grail,  legend  of,  the  Mysteries  and  Yoga 275 

and  the  Ancient  Path 275 

inner  meaning  276 

connection    with     Christian    Sacrament     (see 

Sacraments)    2^7 

Humanity,  submerged  classes  of 28, 29, 30 

deterioration  of  physique 32, 33 

stunted  and  deformed  (see  Social  Conditions)  .201 

Human  nature  changing    43, 44, 80 

changed  by  thought 81 

great  ideals    (see  Mind) 82 

Hypnotismi  used  by  physicians   (see  Science) 67 

Hysteria,  how  produced  (see  Nervous  System) 199 


I 


India,   art  in  life  of 21, 22 

social   conditions   in 28,29 

Burmans,  illustrate  sense  development 50 

music  of   72 

the  caste  system 79 

religion  of   83, 84 

Kashmir  type  of  Aryan 116, 117 

false  method  of  developing  consciousness 177, 178 

the  Yogi  in 199, 200 

a  mighty  past  and  a  mighty  future 212 

White  Lotus  Day,  memorial  services  in 279 


TOPICAL  INDEX  15 

Induction  and  science   107 

limited  to  observed  facts 107 

Initiates  and  inner  revelation 276 

Initiations  reflected  in  Mysteries 143 

of  the   Hierarchy 144 

Inspiration,  what  is  it  ? 322 

and  revelation   322, 324 

lower,  within  experience  of  many 323 

and  the  Masters 324 

in  writing  and  speaking 324 

and   true   mediumship 324 

process  of,  simple 325 

through  companionship  326 

through  books   326 

Inspirational  reading  and  meditation 326 

Inspired  books    327 

men  and  books  and  the  Theosophical  student.  ..327 

Intellectual  growth,  condition  of,  complete  freedom 301 

and   spiritual   unfolding 303 

Intuition,  above  concrete  mind  290 

light  of  spirit  within 289,  290 

must  be  developed  by  Theosophists 290 

Iranians  213 

Ireland,  people  belong  to  fourth  sub-race  of  Aryan 212 

kept  apart   213 

Keltic  race  highly  emotional 184 

Italy  obtained  national  unity 81, 82 


Jesus,  mysteries  of  (see  St.  Cement) 146 

and  Christ  147 

divinity  of  304 

quoted  304 

and  Christ,  relation  between. .....    305 

to  guard  pure  body  for  the  Christ 305 


l6  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

stepped  out  of  body 306 

and  Christ,  view  held  in  early  Church 307 

the  Master,  guide  of  Christian  Church 310 

still  dwelling  in  human  body 310 

possibility  of  personal  relation  with 310 

His  work  in  the  world 312 

Judge,  W.  Q.,  secession   283 

tribute  to,  on  White  Lotus  Day,  1909 285 

K 

Karma,  and  brotherhood  81 

human  nature  81 

reincarnation 81 

law  of,  inviolable  sequence 81 

law  of   221, 222 

paid  in  this  life  (see  Dr.  Pascal) 281 

belief  in    ■ 284 

Keltic,  fourth  sub-race  of  the  Aryan  root- race 140 

Orpheus  leader  of  (see  Races,  also 

Aryan) 140, 141 

Kings,  Moru  and  Devapi  (see  Masters  of  Wisdom) 227 

L 

Law,  universal   191,  192 

one  eternal,  taught  by  Christ  and  Buddha 194 

natural  law  does  not  change 198, 199 

Leadbeater,  C.  W.  L.,  and  the  Catholic  and  Puritan  spirit.  .257 

a    transitory    personality 258 

cause  of  great  shaking  of  T.  S 260 

Lemuria,   lost   continent   of 113 

Lemurian,  third  root-race,  characteristics  of  (see  Race?)..  113 

Light  of  Asia 279 

Lodge,  Great,  of  the  Masters,  source  of  wisdom 285 

the,  its  messengers 296 

London,  conditions  of  living  in 122,  123 

life  contrasted  with  country  life 123 

Love,  wisdom  expresses  itself  as 161 


TOPICAL  INDEX  17 

M 

Mahdi,  in  Africa 150 

Man,  divine    45, 46 

a   spiritual   intelligence 48 

the  real  spiritual  individuality  of 163 

dominated  by  consciousness 184 

spiritual,    mark   of 1 18, 1 19 

nature  of   211 

can  achieve  all  things 204 

is   growing   Godlike 204 

constitution  of,  and  sacraments 264, 265 

body  of,  and  Protestantism 265 

the  spiritual,  will  know  spiritual  men 292 

God  in,  help  the  God  to  manifest 294 

a  spiritual  being  in  whom  Divine  Spirit  will  unfold.. 302 

spiritual  nature  to  unfold  along  three  lines 302 

Manchester    201 

Mantra,  words  of  Power 267, 268, 269 

and  experiments   of  Tyndall 267 

sound  as  used  in 267 

use  of,  in  Greek  Church 268 

Manu,  the  thinker 210 

evolves    race    210 

chooses  type    211 

guide   of   root-race 229 

type   of   race 229 

of  fifth  root- race,  his  work 229, 230 

Masons,  fraternity  of 'jj 

Masters  of  Wisdom   180 

their  teachings  withdrawn 148 

Brotherhood  of  Teachers 187 

preside  over  human  evolution 192 

two  related  to  Theos.  Soc 226,227 

Kings,  Moru  and  Devapi 227 

and  their  pupils 256, 257 

quoted,  "the  standard  of  the  adept".294, 295 
how  to  know  a  Master 293 


i8  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

their  way  of  working  in  world 311 

the  uplift  of  their  presence 324 

and  inspiration    324 

The  Secret  Doctrine 328, 329 

Esoteric  Buddhism 328, 329 

Matter  appropriated  by  spirit 164 

Deity  manifest  in 164 

spirit  master  of 165 

and  spirit,  relation  between 165 

power  over  68, 69, 168, 169 

vibrations  of,  and  consciousness 325 

Mazzini    221 

Medicine,  deadlock  in   19, 20, 21 

hynotism  and  clairvoyance  used  by  physicians..  67 

and  vivisection  (see  Clairvoyance) 67 

power  of  mind  in  treatment  of  disease 68 

Meditation,  concentrated  thinking  58 

artificially  awakens   senses 59, 60 

quickens  evolution  126, 127 

three  stages  of 127 

stimulates  unfolding  consciousness 127 

develops    instrument    used    in    unfolding   con- 
sciousness     176 

used  for  organization  of  finer  bodies 199 

and  inspiration    326 

Menpes,  Mortimer,  description  of  painting 71 

Mexico  189 

Mill,  J.   S 240 

Miller,   Dr.    238 

Mind,  creates    and    restores 68 

supremacy   over   matter 68,  69 

characteristic  of  Teutonic  sub-race  (see  Arj^an 118 

Moral  Educational  Congress 238 

Moru,  sketch   of   life 227 

letter  quoted   227, 228 

Manu  of  sixth  root-race 228 

cooperates  with  Manu  of  fifth  root-race 233 

has  begun  His  work,  key-note  brotherhood 233,234 


TOPICAL  INDEX  19 

Music,  the  new ^2 

of  India  ^2 

Russia    73 

every  religion  has  note  of  its  own 192 

Myer's,  book  on  Human  Personality 175 

Mysteries,  Orphic    140, 141 

Greek  thought  in 143 

Christos,  grade  of 143 

reflexions   of   initiations 143, 144 

of  Jesus  (see  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria) 146 

of  Kingdom  of  God 146 

in  early  church 263 

followed  by  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail 275 

of  Jesus  took  place  of  Yoga  in  Hinduism 275 

Mysticism  and  Puritan  and  Catholic  spirit 253 

Mystic  Puritan,  example  in  Cromwell 254 

Mythology,  comparative  8, 188, 189 

and  dogmatic  Christianity 189 

comparative  religion  190 

N 

Nerves,  sensory  and  motor 169 

Nervous  system,  of  fourth  and  fifth  races  compared 52 

increase  of  nervous  diseases 53 

of   sixth   sub-race 53, 222, 223 

evolved  according  to  law 60 

changing  type  unstable 120 

greater  tension  causes  madness  (see  Psy- 
chology)      121 

its  finer  evolution,  conditions  impossible.  .121 

delicate  type  of 121, 122 

in   coming  race 121, 122, 123 

flesh  food  unsuited  to  finer  type 124 

of  Chinese  and  Japanese  compared  with 

Aryan    222, 22^ 

Ninevah 189 


20  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

O 

Observation,  basis  of  scientific  knowledge 331 

Occultism  and  the  Catholic  spirit 253 

in  the   church 263 

Occultist,  possibility  of,  in  Catholic  type 254, 255 

not  found  in  Puritan  type 255 

must  be  willing  to  learn  by  experience 256 

develops  faculties  in  doing  Master's  will. ..  .256,257 

and  the   mantra 267 

records  of  revelations  accessible  to  him  only 321 

Olcott,  Col.  H.  S.,  referred  to  as  founder  of  T.  S 228 

the  President  Founder,  tribute  to 282 

Old  Testament  in  education 14 

Origen's   writings    145, 146, 147 

Orpheus,  leader  of  fourth  sub-race  (see  Bodhisatva).  .140, 141 

P 

Parsis  213 

Pascal,  Doctor,  tribute  to 281 

Path,  the 275, 276, 277 

Penology,  criminal  population   33,  34 

criminals  and  their  treatment 89-91 

habitual   criminals    92 

probation  system   94, 95 

capital   punishment    95, 96 

criminal  of  lop-sided  development 91 

prison    labor    92, 93 

Periods,  the  present  a  transitional 4,  5 

related  to  Mighty  Beings 133, 134 

four  great  world 133 

Persia,  keynote  of  religion  purity 193 

Persians    212 

Philosophy,  Hindu,  and  the  Vedas 318 

Pituitary  Body,  use  of,  development  of 125 

affected  by  flesh  and  alcohol.  .125, 126, 197, 198 
connecting  link  between  grosser  and  finer 
senses    5i>  ^9^ 


TOPICAL  INDEX  21 

Plato,  his  philosophy 107 

Politics,  liberty  and  the  franchise lOl 

class  legislation  in  England loi 

liberty    loi,  102 

freedom  and   self-control 102 

Protestant,  knows  nothing  of  hierarchy 271 

Protestantism,  its  attitude  towards  physical  body 265 

and  materialism  265 

recognizes  two   sacraments  only 272 

Psj'chic,  low  grade  of  intelligence  in  undeveloped 115 

quaHties.  developed  before  lower  mind 230 

Psychism,  powers  of,  where  found 1 14 

higher,  how  produced  (see  Astral  Body) 125 

Psychology,  new,  the 18, 19 

range  of  possibilities  (see  Nervous  System)  69,70 

soul  in  relation  to  spirit  (see  Soul) 160 

Puranas  226, 227 

Puritan  Spirit  and  intellectual   temperament 245 

value    of    245, 246 

in  reign  of  Charles  First  and  Cromwell 246 

Charles  Second   246 

description   of    247, 248 

outburst  of,  necessary 248 

and  intellectual  development  of  man 249 

growth  of,  and  loss  of  the  spiritual. ..  .250, 251 

in  Theosophical  Society 251, 252 

and  lofty  form  of  Mysticism 253,254 

Occultism    255-257 

the  Leadbeater  question 257, 258 

R 

Races,  root   and   sub 1,2 

religion  of    235 

and  senses   49,  50 

choice  of  new 210 

fourth  and  sixth,  closely  interlinked 213 

Lemurian,   dominant  characteristics  of 113 


22  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Atkntean  (see  also  Atlantean) 113 

passion  and  lower  psychism  of 114 

characteristics  of  Semitic  sub-race.  .115,230 
highest  civilization  in  Toltec 115, 230 

Aryan  (see   also   Aryan) 3 

source   of    229, 230 

second  sub,  Hermes  leader  of 138 

third  sub,  Zarathustra  leader  of 140 

fourth  sub,  Orpheus  leader  of 140, 141 

interlinked  with  sixth  sub 213 

reached  its  zenith 214 

fifth  sub,  the  Christ  leader  of 142, 143 

characteristics   of    151, 152 

sixth  sub,  physical  characteristics 53,222 

mental  and  emotional  character- 
istics     152, 154, 232 

general    characteristics.  .215,  216, 217 

interlinked  with  fourth  sub 213 

candidature   for    222 

the  coming,  source  of 215 

type  of   117-119 

body   of    120-121 

consciousness  of    1 19-120 

preparation  for    127-130 

religion  and  civilization  of 130,131 

candidature    for    215 

Reason,  irrational  or  enlightened 13 

unstable  condition   of 120 

and   madness    121 

the   pure    and   compassionate,    the    Wisdom,    the 

Christ  in  man 160 

the  pure  and  compassionate,  shows  itself  in  lower 

world   as  love 161 


TOPICAL  INDEX  23 

Reflexion,  principle   of    108, 109,  no 

of  the   Great   Will 109 

Wisdom   Love no 

Creative    Spirit    no 

the  law  of,  and  correspondences no 

Reformation,  the    250 

reaction  from  the   (see  Puritan   Spirit,  also 

Cromwell)     263 

the,  and  Occult  mantras 268 

Reincarnation  and  brotherhood 78-80 

karma    81 

necessary  to  theory  of  reflexions in,  112 

and    unfolding   consciousness 191 

the  fact  widely  accepted 237 

belief   in  284 

Religion,  difliculties  of,  in  the  west 6-9 

and   education    12-16, 86, 238, 239 

brotherhood   83, 237 

a  search  after  God 55 

im  India  (see  also  India) 83, 84 

universal  text  book  of 85, 86 

great  teachers  of,  their  spiritual  qualities 118 

coming  race  builder  of  a  universal 130 

founders   of    187 

and  disciples  263 

source  of  great  spiritual  impulses 187, 188 

comparative  (see  Ancient  Wisdom) 190 

doctrines  taught  by  every 190-192 

each,  has  its  note  and  colour 192 

in  Egypt,  India,  Persia,  Greece,  Rome 193 

each  sub-race  has  a  special 235 

of  the   future 235-236 

Christian  Church  broadening 236 

mystical  Christianity  spre^ing 237 

problem!  of   265 

Protestantism  and  the  body 265 

spirituality  and  the  lower  world 266 

all  recognize  a  great  world  teacher 308, 309 

draw  together  in  the  Supreme  Teacher 312 


24  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Revelation  and  the   Self 319 

Buddhist   319 

authoritative  nature   of,  in  Christan  and  Mu- 

hammadan  faiths    320 

defined   320 

source    320 

method  of  recording 320 

attitude  of  Theosophical  student  toward 321 

must  be  affirmed  by  the  Spirit  within 322 

Roberts,  Dr.  (see  Hibbert  Journal)    298, 299 

view  not  sound  and  why 299, 300, 301 

Rome,  closing  age  of  4, 5 

social   conditions    27 

mighty   214 

religious  note  of,  law 193 

Roman,  type  of,  and  Goth 117 

Roman  Catholic  Church  and  higher  criticism 7 

Ireland    214 

the  mystic  spirit  in 236 

attitude   toward  Theosophy 263 

use  of  mantra  in 268, 269 

Sacrament  of  Holy  Orders  in 2^2 

use  of  sacramental  oil 273-274 

reference  to  its  Priesthood 263 

Rontgen  rays   (see  Clairvoyance) 67 

S 

Sacraments,  found  in  all  great  religions 263 

their  object  262, 266 

in   Hinduism    262,274 

Roman  Catholic  Church 263 

definition  of 264 

and  constitution  of  man 264, 265 

Baptism   266, 267 

Holy  Communion  269 

transubstantiation  explained   269, 270 

from  material  standpoint 270, 271 


TOPICAL  INDEX  25 

and   materialism    271 

and   Apostolic   Succession 272 

Confirmation  2T^ 

Penance    273 

Matrimony  2^^ 

Extreme  Unction 273 

and   daily  life 274 

must  be  given  by  church 277 

Sacrifice  and  discipleship  (see  Self-sacrifice) 179,180 

Saint,  where  found,  definition  of 274 

his  Master  and  himself  as  disciple 311 

Saint  Clement  of  Alexandria,  writings 145 

"Mysteries   of  Jesus" 146 

St.  Paul,  writings  on  the  Mystic  Christ 147 

nature  of  man 157, 158 

soul   160 

definition  of  man 162 

birth  of  Divine  Spirit  in  the  Soul.  .304,305 
Schure,  writings  on  mystical  idea  in  Wagner  (see  Grail) .  .275 

Science,  in   west    17, 18 

and  ether,  etheric  sight 63, 64, 65 

chemistry  founded  on  direct  observation (1^ 

bounds  of,  extended 66 

hypnotism  and  clairvoyance  used  by  physicians...  67 

direct  vision  and  vivisection (>7 

geology   and   evolution 106 

and  principle  of  correspondences 104, 105, 106 

induction   and   deduction 107, 108, 1 10, 1 12 

deduction  and  reincarnation iil 

in  coming  civilization 194, 195 

and  Theosophy  in  coming  civilization 195, 196 

Science  of  the  Emotions,  by  Bhagavan  Das 168 

Scientific  observation    I7, 18, 63,  331 

progress  depends  on  correct  observation 331 

Scriptures,  authoritative,  back  of  all  great  religions 318 

and  the  enlightened  man 319 

revealed,   in  Christianity 320 


26  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Secret  Doctrine,  The,  by  H.  P.  Blavatsky 209 

possibility  of  errors  in 328 

record  of  teachings  of  Masters.  .328,329 

Self-sacrifice,  key-note  in  Christianity 193 

and   social    redemption 203 

the  basis  of  the  coming  civilization 204 

religion  and  civilization 205 

Senses,  evolution  of,  in  races 49, 50, 51 

new  organs  of,  in  sixth  sub-race 5i,  53,  57,  58 

artificially  awakened  by  meditation 59, 178, 179 

astral,  effect  of  development 60-63 

new,  builders  of  new  art 70,  y;^ 

Sex-inferiority  (see  Woman  Labor) 11 

Sheffield,    description   of 200 

Sir  William  Crookes,  on  vibrations 63 

Social  conditions,  present,   intolerable    26 

contrast  of  luxury  and  misery 27 

submerged   classes    28,29,30 

physique,  its  deterioration 2>2,ZZ,  201 

multiplication  of  criminal  population.  .33,  34 

in  America   34,35,36 

Australia    37-41 

unemployed   39, 40 

trades  unions  in  Melbourne 41 

competition  replaced  by  cooperation....  42 

woman  labor   29,30,31,99,100 

Socialism,  H.  P.  B.  on 44 

Society  and  Theosophy,  in  coming  civilization 203 

its  redemption  through  self-sacrifice 203 

Soul,  difference  in  age,  the  caste  system 79 

the  old  and  the  young 79, 80, 89, 90 

lop-sided  development   91 

the  young,  its  treatment 92, 93 

in   relation  to  spirit 160, 161 

represented  by  three  attributes 161, 162 

in  temporary  body,  changed 163 


TOPICAL  INDEX  37 

Sound,  the  music  of  the  future 72 

and   colour   and   emotion    (see   Senses,    Vibration, 
Mantra,  Tyndall)   7^ 

Spirit  only  can  know   Him 55 

God  in  innermost  depths  of 56 

architect  of  human  body 74 

higher  qualities  of,  for  coming  race 119 

of  the  Christ,  develop  in  yourselves 154 

definition  of  159 

triple  nature  of 159 

in  relation  to  soul 158-160 

spiritual  body    163 

becoming  master  of  matter 164 

and  matter,  relation  between 165 

in  man  unfolds  along  three  great  lines 302 

Spiritual  realities  belong  to  spiritual  life 54 

qualities  of  Great  Teachers 1 18, 1 19 

type  of  humanity,  mark  Brotherhood 119 

body  relatively  permanent 163 

and  memories  of  past 163 

greatness  and  the  Theosophical  Soc 291 

work  of  the  spiritual  teacher 302 

teacher  sheds  illumination,  not  control  intellect.  .303 

Spirituality  mark  of  coming  civilization 184 

Subba  Rao,  tribute  to  287 

Submerged  classes  (see  Social  Conditions). 

Sun   Myths    141 

Superstition,  definition   249 

illustrated  by  Indian  story 249, 250 

in   religious   reformations 250 

Supply  and  demand  in  America 34-37i  41 

Melbourne    41 

Swedenborg   104 


28  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

T 

Telepathy  and  organization  of  the  Astral  body 173 

how  developed   (see  Senses) I73,  I74 

Theosophy,  name   183 

what  is  it?    Whence  does  it  come?. .  .185, 186, 187 

its  work  in   religion 188 

and  compartaive  mythology 189 

religion    190 

work  of,  in  coming  civilization,  in  religion ....  194 

science 195 

and  Yoga  of  the  East 199, 200 

work  of,  in  coming  civilization,  in  art.. 200,  201,  202 

society 203 

its  ideals  in  education  must  spread 238 

influence  on  education  in  India 239 

ideals  rejected  by  men 242 

must  teach  relationship  of  disciple  to  Teacher. 312 
Theosophical  Society,  considers  causes  rather  than  eflfects. .  25 

teaching  of,  its  advantage 48, 209 

its  members  at  different  stages 225 

drawn  into  swifter  ev- 
olution    225 

two  masters  related  to 226 

founders  of   227 

inner  purpose  of 228 

brotherhood,    only    binding    principle 

233,  234 

and  scientific  men 232 

cornerstone  of  future  religion 234 

first  work  of,  vitalising  Religions  235,  236 

checked  skepticism  in  India 239 

problem,    how    to    preserve    religion 

while  letting  dogmatism  go... 239-240 
personality  and  principle  in. 225,  243,  258 
nucleus  of  sixth  root-race,  beginning 

of  sixth  sub-race 225,  242 

members  not  leaders  of  present  race. 242 


TOPICAL  INDEX  29 

shakings  in,  their  use.  .243,260,287,295 
duties  of,   in   respect  to  sacramental 

rites    277, 278 

not  bound  by  its  officers 244 

reasons  for  staying  in 258, 261, 295 

possibility  of  its   death 261 

Theosophical  movement  not  confined 

to  28s 

its  great  difficulty   287, 288 

immediate  work  288, 289 

members  of  must  develop  intuition.  .290 
must      recognize      spiritual 

greatness    291 

would  hardly  welcome  a  Master 294 

the  John  the  Baptist  to  prepare  the 

way  for  the  Christ 295 

Mrs.   Besant's   message  to 296 

should  use  books  of  observation  as 

materials  for  study  only 332 

Theos.  student  should  prepare  to  verify  teachings 317 

his  attitude  towards  theoretical  study 317 

must  discriminate  between  books  he  reads.  .318 
his  attitude  towards  books  of  observations.  .328 

Thought  and  the  treatment  of  diseases 68 

human  nature  changed  by 81, 82 

and  organization  of  the  Astral  body  (see  Mind)  .  .124 
forms   255 

Thought-image  first,  then  its  materialization 46 

Transition  periods,  birth  of  Christ,  (see  Rome) 4,  5 

the  present 4, 149-150 

Transubstantiation    (see   Sacraments)    269, 270 

Trinity  (see  God),  illustrated  by  organic  chemistry 270 

Truth,  a  sun   332 

examination  of,  is  best  service 333 

Tyndall,  experiments  of  (see  Mantra) 267 


30  THE  CHANGING  WORLD 

Type,   ideal,  of  the  Aryan i  r6 

of  future  nations,  that  of  family 46 

in  mind  of  Logos 116 

Roman    117 

chosen  by  Manu 115,211 

intellectual,  its  work 117, 118 

of  coming  race 117,  iiQ 

of  spiritual  man 118, 119 

with  delicate,  highly  developed  nerves 120-122 

of  bodies  of  coming  race 222 

of  new  Teacher  a  new  departure 240 

next,  new  and  strange 240, 241 

Types,   seven  great  human 116 

reproduce    themselves 117 

V 

Veda,  meaning  of  word 318 

supreme  authority  of 31B 

held  high  place  in  early  days  of  Buddhism 319 

Vegetarianism,  flesh  food  unsuited  to  coming  race 124 

and  Pituitary  Body 125, 126 

pure  body  needed  for  unfolding  conscious- 
ness   178 

Vibrations,  sound,  in  words  of  power  (see  Mantra) 267 

effect  of,  on  consciousness  of  bodies 168, 169 

of  atoms  and  consciousness  of  Logos 165 

Vicarious  atonement 148 

Vivisection,  a  fatal  road 19, 20 

done  away  with  by  direct  vision 67 

W 

White  Lotus  Day  1909,  memorial  services  in   India 279 

all  over  the  world 280 

Will,  self   determined 161 

and   desire 161 

highest  characteristic  of  Spirit 302 

must  be  developed  from  above 3^3 


TOPICAL  INDEX  31 

Wisdom,  the,  the  Christ  in  man  (see  Ancient  Wisdom)  . . .  .160 

expresses  itself  as  love 

Woman,  in  labor  market 99, 100 

Woman  labor,   (see  social  conditions) 29,  30,  31 

Worlds,  and  human  evolution 191 


Yoga,  false    methods    of    developing    consciousness     (see 

Meditation)    177, 178 

Theosophy  brings  Yoga  of  East 199, 200 

the  Mysteries  and  legend  of  Holy  Grail  (see  Holy 

Grail)   275 

Yogi,  the  Indian 199, 200 


Zarathustra   or  Zoroaster,   leader   of   third   sub-race    (see 
Bodhisattva)    140 


BOOKS  BY  ANNIE  BESANT 

Building  of  the  Kosmoss,  and  other  Lectures.     Cloth,  8vo.    75c. 
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UNIVERSITY  OP  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


^uo  ^1 


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5  1918 

FEB  25  1919 

AU6  B  U^4 


AUG  1 


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JUL  1 8  '30^ 


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30m-6,'14 


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